TIMOTHY

We come now to one of the most charming of the New Testament families. We are introduced to Lois the grandmother, and to Eunice the mother, of young Timothy. The apostle bears witness to the unfeigned faith in both grandmother and mother, (2 Timothy 1:5). And in 2 Timothy 3:15, we read; “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation though faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

What a heritage for any child! To know the Holy Scriptures. We may have little to leave our children in the way of earthly possessions, but if we have given them, from a child, the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, we have given them greater riches, greater treasures, than all else this world possesses. Lois the grandmother, and Eunice the mother, both had real faith, and we may be sure it was they who taught Timothy, while yet an infant, (for so the Greek word means), the Holy Scriptures, for his father was a Greek.

The result? You all know it. Read the first and second Epistles to Timothy. I suppose these is nothing like them in all the literature in the whole world. By nature timid, ready to give way to tears, young and tender in age: this is the young man, one might perhaps almost say, boy, on whom the great Apostle leaned, more than on any other. Why? The Holy Scriptures hidden in his heart, and unfeigned faith.

This is an example that all may follow: may we the grandparents, and you the parents, seek with all our strength, and with wisdom from above, to do for our darlings what Lois and Eunice did for Timothy, and surely we may count on the only One Who can, to work that change within, that the Scriptures call being “born again”, and that the unfeigned faith, and the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, will carry and guard each dear one through all the path before them.