Message for May 12, 2002
by Pastor Glenn Layne
2 Timothy 1:3-5

Mother’s Day, 2002

3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

2 Timothy: A letter of destiny

It was morning, and the man under arrest wanted to catch the morning light to write a letter. It would be his last letter, and he suspected as much. While his case had yet to make it to trial, others before him had gone before Nero Caesar and had not fared well.

While only in his fifties, he looked and felt decades older. This was his third extended time in prison in five years, and definitely the worst. No house arrest this time; no freedom to receive guests. This was prison with chains and rats, the Mamartine Prison in Rome.

But the old man brushed aside his circumstances, as he often did, and looked at the paper before him. He picked up his pen and wrote:

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,

2 To Timothy, my dear son:

Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.


His mind went back to the day he’d met Timothy. What was it? Fifteen years ago? Yes, 15 years. Timothy would always be a young man to him, even through he was now in his mid-30s.

And as he thought of Timothy, he thought of two of the most amazing women he’d ever met: Lois and Eunice, the grandmother and mother of Timothy.

Paul’s reminiscences

It was back in the year we would call 47 AD when Paul first met them. In the heart of what is now south central Turkey, there were three cities clustered together: Derbe, Lystra and Iconium.

For Paul, Iconium had been a disaster. Paul’s countrymen, the Jews, had a fair-sized synagogue there, but they reacted violently to the message of Jesus, and he and Barnabas had to get out of town fast.

Lystra was a completely different place. The town was utterly pagan except for a few Jewish women. He’d never forget the day that a lame man was healed, and the townspeople were convinced that he and Barnabas were gods—Hermes the messenger god and Zeus the supreme god, to be specific. (There was some advantage, Barnabas would kid Paul later, to being well over six feet tall!)

Paul managed to talk them out of offering sacrifices to them as gods, then they turned on them. He never saw the stone coming, the one that knocked him out cold. He woke up hours later outside the city walls.

He remembered two Jewish women who tended to his wounds: a mother of about 60 years of age and daughter around 40. God had indeed opened theirs hearts. He thanked them, but decided that for the time being, he had little he could accomplish in Lystra. The next day he hobbled off to Derbe. That was the turning point. Many came to the Lord there. They later came back to Lystra and even Iconium, and the people, Jew and Gentile, were coming to faith in the Lord Jesus.

He never forgot those two women. Eunice had a son, Timothy, a serious young man in his late teens.

Timothy: now there’s an interesting young man.

Some years before, Lois and her then young daughter came to this place. When Pappa died, there were all alone, two Jews in a city of pagans. Oh, there were a few other Jewish folks, but not even enough to have a synagogue, and you only need five men to do that.

So young Eunice (her Greek name, Eunike’ means "Good Victory") grew up in this pagan city. Her mother read her the Scriptures and taught her the meaning of the word of God. And her daughter remained true to the God of Israel.

That’s when she met him. Paul never actually knew his name, only that he was a Greek who came to Lystra. It was a whirlwind romance, and they were married. A year later little Timothy was born.

Lois and Eunice had hoped that the father would allow the boy to be circumcised as a Jew, but he forbade it. Perhaps that was the beginning of the end. The man traveled more and more and finally simply left. A few years later, a letter arrived from Greece: a decree of divorce.

So now here was little Timothy: half-Jew, half-Greek, never quite fitting in. The children of the city would taunt the boy mercilessly. His refuge was home, with his mother and grandmother.

When Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra, Timothy was a tall gangly teenager. When they found their faith renewed—the faith of Israel now set on fire with the knowledge that Messiah had indeed come—he remained in the background. He did not commit. While he had a Jewish faith, his life had been one of hurt: abandoned by a father he scarcely remembered, taunted as Jewish by the children of Lystra, sniffed at as not truly Jewish by the few Jews he did know.

The man Timothy

Yet, thought Paul, he was a good man. Good to his mother and grandmother. A steady, affectionate, faithful man. But life’s knocks had also made him timid, fearful and uncertain.

Truth was, Timothy was a natural born follower more than a natural born leader.


The women behind the man: Lois and Eunice

And now these women, excited by the message of Jesus that Paul and Barnabas, continued to love Timothy. They showed him how Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures they’d read to him since he was a child. And sometime in that period, their dogged determination, their sincere love, their genuine care persuaded him that this was a faith to be trusted.

The message of Jesus—that He was the Savior not only of Israel, but also of the whole world—was the perfect salve for the heart of Timothy, the half-breed. He’d grown up being a half and a half. But now in Jesus he was whole!

And he blossomed. While Timothy would always have the same personality, a new dimension was added. In a matter of months, the young man became one of the key leaders in the little church in Lystra. And sometimes he would go over to Iconium and help out over there as well.

Two years later, Paul came back to Lystra. The gangly teen was now a young adult, and he impressed Paul very much. Barnabas and his cousin Mark were no longer with him; instead Paul worked with a sharp man named Silas, a Jewish believer from Syria. Paul came into Timothy’s life not unlike a father. Paul and Silas needed a third: a helper, and an apprentice. Timothy was the man for that role.

2 Timothy 1:3-5: A parallel with Paul

Paul continued to write:

3 I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4 Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.

He paused and sighed. He missed Timothy. He was the closest thing he’d ever had to a son, and Paul was the closest thing Timothy had ever had as a father. Paul was in Rome; Timothy was far away in Ephesus. He missed his stalwart faith, his loyalty, his passion, his tears. And as he thought of Timothy, he thought of the women who had formed the faith of Timothy.

Paul had maintained that he was walking in the faith of his ancestors (vs. 3): I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. As a follower of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, he never thought of himself as an adherent of any other faith than that of his ancestors. His was the faith of Israel, now offered to all the world.

In an odd sort of way, Timothy was also the beneficiary of the faith of those who’d gone before him—in this case, the faith of Lois and Eunice. This I find striking: when Paul contemplated the man of faith Timothy had become, he also thought of the two women who had made Timothy the man he became.

What kind of faith did Lois and Eunice share with him?

1. A sincere faith: "I have been reminded of your sincere faith," he writes. The word is literally "without play-acting" faith. It’s the real deal. There was an integration of life and faith that was seamless. The people who impact us are not just the ones who can give us doctrinal truth, but who live God-filled lives. This kind of sincere faith, he says, was a legacy from his mom and his grandma: a sincere faith "which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice."

2. A faith with a clear conscience: Paul sees parallels between his own walk with God and that of Timothy. They both had an inheritance of a faith with a clear conscience. For Timothy, this was a gift as well from Lois and Eunice. Following Jesus as Messiah did not mean a betrayal of his Jewish faith: it was the fulfillment of all that he believed in as a Jew. So it was for Timothy.

I remember my father looking at his first grandson, my nephew Eric, as he was a sleeping newborn. "You only sleep like that," he said, "When you have a clear conscience." Another gift that Timothy received from his mom was a clear conscience. She’d taught her son right and wrong, and choosing the right. It was a great legacy to share.

3. A faith with passionate loyalties: In verse 4, Paul remembers the last time he saw Timothy—perhaps even as Paul was hustled off by Roman soldiers to face trial in Rome. On that occasion, Timothy was no Stoic: he’d shed tears as Paul departed. He was a man of passionate loyalties: loyal to Paul, loyal to the work, but most importantly, loyal to Jesus Christ. This habit of loyalty again was something that has been modeled to him by Lois and Eunice.

A Mother’s impact…through time

Maybe you remember a month ago when Bill Nicoson was here and he told the story about the pastor in Colorado Spring who left his wife for another woman, and how his fellow pastors in that city held him accountable, and invested great time and energy in his correction. "What will your sin cost me?" was the question that one of those pastors posed. This man’s sin cost not just his relationship with his wife, but also with his church, his community, and with the intervention of the other pastors, it cost something by all the churches led by those pastors.

Fortunately, sin is not the only factor with a ripple effect. Another question we could ask one another is "How will your faith—and your faithfulness—bless me?"

Clearly in the case of Lois and Eunice, their faith blessed Timothy, who in turn blessed Paul and the churches they helped start, and all the people of all those churches, right down to today.

Who can measure the impact of a believing mother? I know I can’t. I can’t begin to express the gratitude that needs to be expressed. But perhaps I can recount the stories of some others as a way of saying thanks.

Perhaps the most remembered mother is all post-Biblical Christian history is Monica, the mother of Augustine. She was from Tagaste, in what is now Tunisia. Her husband Patricius died young, leaving her a widow at the age of 40. She was the mother of three, Augustine being the oldest. And Augustine was nothing but trouble to this Christian mother. He got involved in paganism, and later in what we today would call a cult. He was also sexually promiscuous and was the father of an illegitimate child.

But Monica kept praying that the foundation Augustine had grown up with would draw him back. She was well into her 50s when her wayward son finally surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus, and she lived long enough to see him not only come to Christ, but to begin to become a leader in the church of the 4th century AD. That’s the impact of a mother.

Her faith and prayers, some of said, saved England from the madness of the French Revolution. John especially led countless common people to a real faith, and kind of accidentally stated the Methodist church.

Susanna was the main teacher of her children, and a stalwart prayer warrior on their behalf. Where do you get time to pray when you have 19 children (and how do you keep them all straight)? Well, maybe it’s just a story, but they say that sometimes she’d just whip her apron up over her head and say, "I’m in now Lord; let’s pray!" This praying woman raised up a family that transformed the spiritual climate of the nation of Britain. That’s the impact of a mother.

John ran away from home in his teens to become a sailor and by the age of 20 was captain of his own slave-trading ship, plying the waters of the Atlantic, taking slaves from Africa to America. His mother had raised him with the Bible, but he choose a life of adventure and profit instead. Mother Newton prayed for her son, and he gave his life to Christ at the age of 23. He went on not only to be an effective pastor, but also a crusader against slavery and a songwriter. You know his most famous song, right: "Amazing Grace"? That’s the impact of a mother.

Her son, J.H. Bomberger, was entrusted with $2,000 to transport from a small town in Indiana to Cincinnati—a huge sum in the 1830s. He told of how he rode by horseback first down to Lawrenceburg, Indiana, just as a riverboat bound for New Orleans made port.

He mulled over his options. With $2,000 cash, he could board the boat and live like a king, far from any pursuit. But he couldn’t do it. Why? Gazing at the riverboat, all he could hear was the voice of his mother, who had read aloud the word of God to him from childhood. He turned and rode to Cincinnati, made the delivery and went back home. And he became a businessman, a successful businessman, and was later elected to the state legislature in Indiana. That’s the impact of a mother.

When Henry J. Heinz—the man with the "57 Varieties" including Heinz ketchup—when he died, he had this paragraph in his will:

Looking forward to the time when my earthly career will end, I desire to set forth, at the very beginning of this will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior. I also desire to bear witness to the fact that throughout my life, in which there were unusual joys and sorrows. I have been wonderfully sustained by my faith in God through Jesus Christ. This legacy was left me by my consecrated mother, a woman of strong faith, and to it I attribute any success I have attained.

Folks, that’s the impact of a mother

© Copyright 2002, Pastor Glenn Layne, www.templecitybaptist.org