Sermon illustrations on forgiveness

The slave who went back to his captors — St. Patrick

Matthew 5:44“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”

Patrick was carried off from Britain at sixteen and spent six years enslaved on the Irish hills, where his nominal childhood faith became real. He escaped and made it home — and then, by his own account, a vision called him back to the very people who had enslaved him. He returned to Ireland not as a conqueror seeking redress but as a missionary, baptising and ordaining among his former captors. Forgiveness here is not a feeling; it is a man spending his life on the people who stole his youth.

From Confessio (The Confession of St. Patrick) by Patrick of Ireland (450) — read the account →

The slave-trader who wrote “Amazing Grace” — John Newton

1 Timothy 1:15“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

John Newton was a profane seaman and slave-ship captain. A violent storm in 1748 began a slow turning; he eventually sought ordination, became a clergyman, and late in life publicly renounced and campaigned against the trade he had once profited from. He never softened what he had been — which is exactly why his account preaches. The whole point of his life is that the guilt was real and the pardon was greater.

“Once an infidel and libertine … by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.”John Newton's own epitaph, which he composed

From An Authentic Narrative by John Newton (1764) — read the account →

Faith instead of revenge — Olaudah Equiano

Romans 12:21“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Kidnapped at about eleven, Equiano survived the Middle Passage and years of bondage before purchasing his own freedom in 1766. Converted under evangelical preaching, he turned the memory of everything done to him not into a call for vengeance but into the most effective abolitionist testimony of his age. His Narrative is forgiveness made productive: a man channelling unimaginable wrong into mercy toward others still enslaved.

From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Written by Himself by Olaudah Equiano (1789) — read the account →