Years ago I was deeply inspired by a book I read on Columba by Nigel Tranter, a Scottish historian. While it was an historical fiction, it gave me a sense about how the gospel spread across Scotland. Everything else I have read on the subject was consistent with the picture of evangelism painted by that book. So, I ran across this excellent blog post by Liam Goligher on evangelism by the celts.
From what we are able to glean from the sparse sources of the preaching of the Celtic missionaries, a general pattern emerges. They were energetic and selfless evangelists who sought nothing for themselves but to spend and be spent in serving the Saviour. Mungo effectively brought Christianity to the area around what is now Glasgow. His demeanour and preaching were marked by a ‘holy joy.’ Ninian is distinguished by the fact that from an early age he absorbed and studied the Scriptures and went on to evangelise South West Scotland.
In general they possessed no other literature but the Bible and they delighted to read it, preach it, and even transcribe it for others. Columba is said to have transcribed the Gospels and the Psalms three hundred times and on the day of his death was engaged in copying the 34th Psalm, ‘they that seek the Lord shallnot want any good thing.’ Feeling a touch of chill he stopped and asked his colleague to continue, rested on his stone bed till midnight, then stole into the church, where kneeling in prayer he died.
Above all they were preachers. The most detailed account of these remote times concerns Columbanus, who left his native Ireland to work in Scotland and later Italy. He wrote a volume titled, Instructiones, which consists of sermons which are ‘simple, practical, fervent exhortations, constantly dwelling on Christ, His love and His work, and striving to kindle a corresponding spirit that would show the love of Christ glowing in the heart and that would fill the life with charity and humility. He is never weary of urging how Christ by His death became our life, how if we are alive to God we must be dead to sin, and how the fruit borne in our life should bear some proportion to the price wherewith we are redeemed. A great price truly, “the Lord died for the servant, the King for the minister, God for man”‘
From HERE
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