Our first meeting of Timothy and his mother come during Paul’s
second
missionary journey. This
is the same trip that started with Paul and Barnabas parting company,
Barnabas taking young John
Mark as his assistant to Cyprus, and Paul taking one of the prophets
of Antioch, Silas, as his
assistant. Paul heads north, overland, through southeast Turkey,
visiting the churches that he and
Barnabas together started.
Here the story picks up in Acts 16:
Luke says that Paul wanted Timothy continue on the trip with
him.
Paul was quite impressed
with Timothy, and apparently saw in him the same potential in him that
Barnabas had seen in John
Mark. So as Barnabas elected to be Mark’s mentor, Paul took
Timothy
as his apprentice. As we
shall see in our future study of Timothy, Paul used Timothy quite
extensively,
sending him to places
where Paul himself wanted to go, enabling Paul to do what most pastors
wish we could do -
namely being in two places at once. Paul could trust Timothy
with these responsibilities only if he
saw in him a firm grasp of the Scriptures - not merely having a broad
knowledge of the Old
Testament, but having a depth of wisdom in the Scripture’s application
to life and doctrine. It is
evident that Timothy had this maturity before Paul had met him.
Where did he get it? Paul
himself tells us in his Second letter to Timothy,
2 Timothy 1:
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,
according to the promise of life which is in
Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, a beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace from
God the Father and Christ Jesus
our Lord.
3 I thank God, whom I serve with a pure conscience, as
my forefathers did, as without ceasing I
remember you in my prayers night and day,
4 greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your
tears,
that I may be filled with joy,
5 when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is
in you, which dwelt first in your
grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is
in you also.
Ah, so here is her name: Eunice. Frankly I find it bit
odd,
from my own cultural perspective that
Paul would reference Timothy’s mother and grandmother by name in this
way. But I am most
certainly glad he did, otherwise, we wouldn’t know their names.
What do we know about these two ladies, Lois and Eunice, other
than
they were Timothy’s
grandmother and mother? Already we know quite a bit.
First we know that Eunice was raised in a Jewish home. It
appears
both of Eunice’s parents were
Jewish, for she is herself identified by the local community as being
Jewish. However, the name
she bears is not a Jewish name. Eunice is a Greek name.
As we have already seen, this adoption
of Gentile names by Jews living among Gentiles was not uncommon.
However, as is also
common, the children of religious parents living in an irreligious
culture tend to drift from the faith
and values of the parents toward lower standards of the
culture.
Your Old Testament Sunday
School stories are full of examples - the children of Job, the
daughters
of Lot, the sons of King
David, just to name a few.
It appears that Eunice, likewise, in her teen or early adult years
wandered
from the faith of her
parents, and committed herself to a marriage relationship that is in
clear violation of Biblical
principles. Her violation was not so much her marriage
to someone outside of Judaism. Even in
the Old Testament that was allowed, so long as the one she would
married
embraced the faith of
Israel. Two gentile women are in the Lord Jesus’ family tree,
Rahab and Ruth, and they were
notable women of faith and commitment to the God of Israel.
However,
such was not the case of
Eunice’s husband. We don’t know his name, and it may be just
as well that we don’t.
We frankly cannot know what were Eunice’s reasons and
rationalizations
for marrying an
unbeliever. It may not be as I have suggested that she was at
that time in a period of open
rebellion against the faith and morals of her parents. She may,
as many women foolishly have
done, met a very nice man, whom she thought she might convert by
marrying
him. And it was
obvious that by the time their son Timothy was an adult, her husband
still had not converted.
If my first scenario is a correct one, namely that Eunice married
an
unbeliever at a time when she
was careless in her own moral standards, she would have had an
awakening,
as many do in that
state, when she became the parent of a young child. Her
religion and morality no longer was a
private matter, now that she, with her husband, had charge of the
raising
and training of this little
boy named Timothy. And it is quite evident that she and
her husband did not see eye to eye on
this critical point.
So what did she do? She couldn’t get on the phone and call
Doctor
Laura and receive a well
deserved scolding. She did, however, draw on the Biblical
training
that had been instilled in her
during her own youth, and she made some very wise decisions.
First, she committed herself to teach Timothy by word and example
the
truth and wisdom of
Scripture, even if she would not be allowed to do it in a culturally
Jewish way.
Second, she committed herself to remain loyal to her
husband,
even though he seemed to express
no interest in converting, nor did he want his son to be circumcised
as a Jew. Eunice could have
been secretive and defiant, taking baby Timothy to the Rabbi for the
right of circumcision anyway.
She could have easily given her husband a dozen reasons to divorce
her. She remained committed
to her vows, and made family decisions in consideration of the wishes
of her unbelieving husband.
Third, when her own husband would not support her in teaching
Biblical
truth and wisdom their
son, she enlisted her own mother as her support system. In
today’s
culture, this is quite
extraordinary. Mothers and their young adult daughters are all
too often at war with each other,
the daughters in conflict over what they perceive as their mothers’
attempts to control them, and
the mothers’ panicked over what they perceive as unwise or
self-destructive
decisions their
daughters are making. Eunice and Lois certainly had all the
ingredients
for such a battle. And we
don’t know that they didn’t. But when Eunice needed help for
a task bigger than she could
handle herself, she knew where to get it. And with Paul, we can
offer high commendations for
both Eunice and Lois for the way they worked together for Timothy’s
good.
How Lois assisted Eunice in instilling Biblical truth and wisdom
in
Timothy, we do not know. I
may be in a better position to preach this part of the sermon after
I gain some experience in the
role of a grandparent, should the Lord and my own daughters grant me
that at some future date.
Some of you may have good stories to tell in the positive
influence
that your grandparents had in
your lives.
Many a grandparent has told me, “If I knew being a grandparent was
going to be so much fun, I
would have skipped having children, and just had grandchildren.”
Thankfully, Timothy’s grandma was nearby and knew how to
graciously
help her daughter in her
difficult task, without intruding, without being controlling.
What did Lois and Eunice do with Timothy, and how did they do
it?
We don’t know the details,
but Paul gives us a hint as to the kind of training Timothy received
that made him the man he was,
the kind of training that won Paul’s respect for this remarkable
family.
1 Timothy 3:
14 But you must continue in the things which you have
learned
and been assured of, knowing
from whom you have learned them,
15 and that from childhood you have known the Holy
Scriptures,
which are able to make you
wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for
correction, for instruction in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly
equipped
for every good work.
A fourth thing that Eunice did in the matter of raising Timothy
toward
godly virtue was to enlist
the help of Godly men in the congregation and in the community to
reinforce
the training he had
received at home. The passage we read in Acts 16 speak of “the
brethren” in the churches in
Lystra and Iconium, who I believe helped to mentor Timothy. It
was then the Apostle Paul
himself who then became Timothy’s teacher and mentor. And as
we saw from they way Paul had
dealt with John Mark, Paul would not have taken Timothy on as his
apprentice
had the young
man not already had demonstrate the fruit of other people’s training.
We do this kind of shared mentoring in the church today. I
deeply
appreciate the Christian men
and women who have spent time with my son and my daughters to give
them opportunity to
exercise their God-given gifts, to give them opportunity to exercise
in works the faith that
Georganne and I have sought to instill in them. This spirit of
shared mentorship is the prime
reason Christians work together to establish Christian schools, that
will reinforce Christ centered
living and thinking in our children.
Back to Eunice, Lois, and Timothy for a final insight....
We do not know for certain when and how those three became
Christians.
The faith of their
upbringing was the faith of Old Testament Judaism. The only
Christ
that they could know was
the Christ of prophecy of the Old Testament. Their faith was
in the God of Israel, who had made
a covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, promising
that one day that He
would send a Savior-King, the Messiah, who would one day come as the
full and final sacrifice for
their sins - and for our sins - and that this Messiah would then reign
as Lord not merely over the
tribes of Israel, but as King of the universe, reigning in
righteousness.
When and how Eunice, Lois, and Timothy learned that Jesus of
Nazareth
was the fulfillment of
those prophecies, and the fulfillment of their hopes and expectation
of the coming Savior, we
don’t know. However, we do have a hint. In Paul’s
second letter to Timothy we learn that
Timothy - and I suppose, Eunice and Lois - first met Paul, not on his
second missionary journey
where Paul picked Timothy up as his apprentice. Rather, they
were there when Paul and
Barnabas came to town on their first missionary journey four years
earlier.
2 TIMOTHY 3:
10 But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner
of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering,
love, perseverance,
11 persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at
Antioch
(#2), at Iconium, at Lystra; what
persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered
me.
The events that Paul refers to here are described in detail in
Acts
13 and 14. On his first mission
trip into that region, Paul was literally chased out of Antioch and
Iconium, but in Lystra, which I
assume is Timothy’s home town, hostile unbelievers stoned Paul, dragged
his unconscious body
out of town, and dumped him there, assuming that he was dead.
You can read for yourself what
happened next. (That’s Acts chapter 14.)
So Lois, Eunice, and Timothy were there to hear Paul’s gospel
message
the first time he came to
their town. And because they had be so deeply grounded in the
Word of God, they could weigh
what Paul had said about Jesus against the Old Testament prophecies
and they found in Jesus the
fulfillment of Israel’s hope for the Savior. But beyond that,
Eunice and Lois and Timothy, were
also so firmly grounded in the Word of God that when they finally did
trust Jesus as their Messiah
and received the life changing power of the Holy Spirit, they each
had a wisdom and maturity
which enabled them to teach and counsel others.
The name Eunice is a Greek name, which means literally, “good-victor,” eu-nika.
In her youth Eunice made some unwise choices that had life-long
implications.
Yet it was the
God of her youth to whom she returned, and with the help of Godly men
and women whom God
brought into her life, she saw the answer to her prayers for her son
fulfilled in a remarkable way.
In Paul’s first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote: “Let
no one
despise your youth, but be an example
to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in
faith, in purity.” (1 Timothy 4:12)
May God grant this also for us and our youth.
Amen.