Godly Motherhood And The Passing Down Of Sincere Faith (2 Timothy 1:5)
I found myself incredibly saddened and disheartened this week. It was an article from the New York Times that discussed the falling birth rate in America. The article was strictly about the replacement rate and all the problems that come to a society when the birth rate falls below replacement rate, which you’ve likely heard about in the last few days. But the article ended by asking if and why people were going to have children in the future. The comment thread on Facebook was incredibly disheartening. A large portion of the people commenting were applauding the fact that people are not having children. But the largest group of commenters were those who said that they were not having children because they were not willing to make sacrifices for children. They might consider having babies if the government made having children easier, but they were not willing to sacrifice much if anything in order to have children. Their purpose was not going to be found in anything inside the home and the child was just going to be a small addition that they tacked on to their lives if the situation was made good enough. If the government could figure out a way for them to find satisfaction in their job and allow them to raise a kid when they had a little time then they would consider having a child.
But I should not be shocked or even the least bit surprised. Every day that passes I find that our society does not value children as it ought. And I also find that our society does not value women, mothers, and their grandmothers as it ought. And a large part of the problem is that our society simply does not appreciate those things associated with being a woman. There are things that only women can do, and our society does not seem to appreciate those things. In fact, our society has persuaded a large portion of the females within the society that those things they can do that men can’t do hold them in bondage, slavery and that they need to be freed from them somehow.
One of the major arguments for abortion made during the oral arguments of the Roe v. Wade case was that women could not actually be free unless they were able to determine whether to continue their pregnancy. Sarah Weddington, who presented the pro-abortion case in the oral arguments of Roe v Wade, argued that a child causes such a disruption in life that the mother should have the right to terminate the pregnancy. Consider what is being said here. Unless a woman can function like a man and not have children then she cannot be free to fulfill the desires of her heart.
Women have the distinct ability to have children. Men cannot. I hope that our society has not been dumbed down enough that I don’t have to give a biology lesson for you to understand why this is given as a bare fact. God has created the human race in such a way that women can have children and men cannot. But since our society believes that this difference is not a blessing but a curse that enslaves women and disrupts their life abortions should not only be legal, but now many people argue that the State should pay for them. And the truth is that a large portion of our society has bought the lie.
Now, I do not believe that Scripture teaches that women have to stay at home. The woman of Proverbs 31 does work outside of the home. That is a decision that my wife and I made for our family. She and I believe that this is the absolute best thing we can do for our children. And, I wholeheartedly believe it is the right decision for us. I was leaving to come to church and paint the office when I heard my wife praying with and for our kids before they started their school-work and was reminded about why we made the decision we did. Notice though that the woman of Proverbs 31 does much work that benefits her family outside of the home. No matter how much work and charity she did outside of the home, her life was spent caring for her family. She does much kindness to those outside of the home, but because of her life being spent for her family her children call her blessed and her husband shouts her praises in the city gate. And this is exactly the place that our society has causes so many problems.
Our society has tried to teach women that they should find their purpose in their job. Their fulfillment should come in their job and they should be at work somewhere outside of home. According to our society your meaning and purpose is to be found in what you do outside the home and not in pouring out your life for your family. Here is where I think things get funny. As a general rule, men do not find their satisfaction in their jobs, but women are being taught they are supposed to do so. And here is a question that you need to ask yourself. How many people find meaning and satisfaction in their job? Go and ask a bunch of men why they work. From my conversations, most of them would say that they work because of their family. And they would also say that their current job is a paycheck that either pays more or is more tolerable than a paycheck that they could get somewhere else. And they try to achieve more to better provide for their family. If he did not have a family, he would likely do less work for less money and be content with more time to go fishing. Now, if a man’s purpose is not found in his job, but in providing for his family then why is a woman expected to find her purpose somewhere else?
And here is my point in all of this rambling. While our society seeks to belittle mothers, motherhood, and even womanhood let us be a people who hold it in incredibly high esteem. We are a peculiar people in this world. Let us be really weird and truly honor mothers and womanhood.
When I think through the history of Christianity and the role that mothers have played throughout it, it seems to me that their impact has been profound. And a lot of the reason for their profound impact has been that they understood the special role of mothers in the lives of their children.
Augustine was probably the most influential theologian in the history of the Church. Both Romanists and Protestants uphold him as the most influential. His father was a pagan and his mother was a devout Christian. And he wandered away from the Christian faith. But, it was the prayers of his mother, Monica, that brought this wayward child back to the faith according to Augustine. She prayed, wept, and fasted for this child who had abandoned the faith. One pastor told her, “The child of those tears shall never perish.” And Augustine understood that God answered her prayers and that was the reason he came back to the faith.
I also think of Suzannah Wesley. She was the mother of John and Charles Wesley, which are the two men that founded the Methodist Church. And we still sing the hymns of Charles Wesley occasionally today. And John Wesley was a preacher in England and in America during the First Great Awakening. He and George Whitfield are the most influential of that time-period. She taught her children the Bible, theology, how to play music, as well as everything we think of as school today. She passed the faith down to her children and had a tremendous impact upon Christianity worldwide. Who would have thought that her work would have change the world as it did?
Another American Christian woman of note is Sarah Edwards. She was the wife of Jonathan Edwards, whose preaching is credited with starting the First Great Awakening that John Wesley and George Whitefield were so influential in. Everything I have read about her was about her kind, loving, and prayerful discipline. She loved, cared for, raised, and taught a house full of children. And I would argue that there is no person that has ever lived who shaped America after the Founders as much as she did.
“In 1900, A.E. Winship studied what happened to 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah by the year 1900. He found they included 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians and a dean of a medical school, and 80 holders of public office, including three US Senators, mayors of three large cities, governors of three states, a Vice-President of the United States, and a controller of the United States Treasury. They had written over 135 books and edited eighteen journals and periodicals. Many had entered the ministry. Over 100 were missionaries and others were on mission boards.” (Jonathan Edwards, America’s Humble Giant”, Christianity Today International, 2008; http//chi.gospelcom.net/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps097.shtml.)
Now, Sarah Edwards died in 1758. Within 150 years of her death this was the impact that she had on the world and especially within the United States.
And the message that I hope to convey in all of this is that while the world may think little of the role of motherhood, I do not and Christians should not. It is serious business. And when we begin to consider that our children are going to have children of their own, who have children of their own, and all of those people are going to live forever we begin to understand that the role of the family is enormous.
Today I want to look at 2 Timothy 1:5 and see a picture of that passing down of the faith from one generation to another in the mother and grandmother of Timothy.
Both mothers and fathers have huge roles to play in the family, but today I want to reclaim something our society is attempting to take from mothers. They are special. And they have a powerful role to play in the raising of children. Our society has attempted to slight the role of the mother in the life of children. And the Leviathan of the State seems to want to reach its tentacles into the family more and more. As it does so, it demeans the role of mothers in the life of their children as if the State could ever take over such a high and noble calling.
So, let’s look at this from the life of Timothy and the role that Lois and Eunice played in his life in 2 Timothy 1:5. And here we will catch a glimpse from the life of Timothy what it means to have women in your life with sincere faith who pass that down to you.
A Sincere Faith
Paul was reminded of Timothy’s “sincere faith” (2 Timothy 1:5 ESV). The word translated as “sincere” is the Greek word, ἀνυποκρίτου. The definition of that word is “without hypocrisy. Paul knew Timothy. He knew the life that Timothy led. He also knew what Timothy believed and he saw that Timothy’s life and profession lined up.
Timothy believed. Timothy had heard the good news and been brought up learning the good news. People rebelled against God, who is the Creator of all things and to whom we must one day give an account of our lives. We all stand guilty before Him. But God did not leave us in that situation. God the Son took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life and accomplished everything that we should have accomplished. He went to the cross and conquered the power of sin and death. He died in the place of sinners. And He rose from the grave three days later having accomplished our right standing with God. The Christian is declared to be without sin because Christ paid for it on the cross and completely righteous, because Christ achieved righteousness on their behalf. Timothy believed that and had trusted Christ.
Timothy did not simply believe something he had been told, but he entrusted his entire life to Christ and was transformed. Faith is entrusting ourselves to that truth. I can believe that airplanes fly and never entrust myself to the workings of an airplane. If I don’t have faith in airplanes and pilots then I can drive, take a train, or ride in a boat. Timothy had entrusted his life to Christ and had been transformed. That is the response that we are to have to this message of the gospel. We repent and believe. Repentance is turning away from sin and ruling our own lives and repentance is entrusting our self to Christ.
Timothy had trusted Christ and was also walking in Christ’s ways. That is what Christians are to do and to be. Timothy was a believer who was following after Christ. Which, again is what Christians do. Over and over we have seen in the Book of 1 John that Christians follow Christ. They walk as Christ walked. And the righteous life of Timothy was noticed and noted by Paul. It was very obvious to Paul that Timothy had sincere faith.
Timothy apparently had the type of faith that we are called to have. We are to be people who follow Christ. The Christian is transformed by the gospel and made to be people who love God by obeying Him and love our brothers and sisters in Christ. As a Christian, this is what I should strive to have.
“Whoever says “I know Him” but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him, but whoever keeps His Word, in Him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in Him: whoever says He abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.” (1 John 2:4-6 ESV)
Be a Christian with a sincere faith. Obey God’s commands. Love your brothers and sisters in Christ. Walk as Jesus walked. Strive to live a life that is without hypocrisy.
A Shared Faith
This faith that Timothy had “dwelt first in” his “grandmother Lois and” his “mother Eunice” (2 Timothy 1:5 ESV). Paul states that this “sincere faith” dwelt in all three of these people. Like Timothy, Lois and Eunice had trusted Christ and walked in Christ’s ways without hypocrisy.
We can gather from this simple and short statement that Lois and Eunice had modeled the life of Christ before the eyes of Timothy. His mother and grandmother had lived a life of faith before the eyes of Timothy and now it was a sincere faith that they all shared.
There is a good portion of life that is shared with your children and grandchildren.
I was driving down the road one day and a guy cut me off in traffic. My daughter saw what happened and yelled, “what an idiot!” Where did she learn that? Well, that was my bad behavior shining through. She caught that from her father, and I quickly had to rectify that by personal repentance, and inform her that I had been a bad example to her and I was going to try and be better. And that is not the only time something like this has taken place.
Oftentimes the things that drive me the craziest in my children are the things that are true of myself. I can see in the temper tantrums the 12-year old that would scream at referees on the basketball court. Every eye-roll reminds me of the smart mouth that I had as a kid and the many spankings and rocks I had to pick up because of it. And, scarier than that, the bad attitudes I have had in their presence can be found in them as well.
The positive traits are passed down as well. I’ve witnessed my daughter help her mother and care for people as she has witnessed her mother do. I have seen her pray as we have done as a family. I have seen both my children take the effort to read and learn on their own, which is something they have seen modeled in the lives of their parents.
As parents we have to be careful to model Christian living to our children. There is a real sense in which they will do what you do and learn from what you do every day. Mothers, grandmothers, as well as fathers and grandfathers need to remember this and remember it well. Your children are watching you and there will come a time when you will notice that they have been watching you their whole lives and are doing many of the things that you do.
A Passed Down Faith
Another important thing that we can gain from looking at the lives of Lois and Eunice is that they passed down the faith to Timothy.
Because of what we know about our Bibles, we can assume that Lois and Eunice were taught that they were to teach their children the faith at all times. One of the most important passages of Scripture in the Old Testament was Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The Shema, which means “hear” was recited daily and right after that is the command in verse 7 to teach children diligently.
4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 ESV)
So, when is this to be taught. Always. Your children are to be taught diligently, and talk of God’s Word and His ways when you are seated in your house, when you are walking/traveling, when you go to bed, and when you get up in the morning. This is at all times.
Remember, New Testament believers at the time of the New Testament did not have the writing so the New Testament to read. They read from the Old Testament and were taught from the Old Testament concerning Christ.
Lois and Eunice surely taught God’s Word diligently to young Timothy as the text above describes. And in doing so they passed the faith down to Timothy. And Paul recognized their deep faith in Him.
When your child is born, you have approximately 18 years to do this with your children. After that you become more of an advisor. That should both put a lump in your throat and give you some relief. The lump comes when you realize that your time is limited. The relief comes when you understand that this is a process that takes place over a period of a lot of years.
I want to give a description of how this can take place in your home. I will use our home as an example in this. I believe there is a need for parents to have both a formal time of teaching their children and a whole lot of informal times of teaching children.
In our home we do a catechism. That is a question that we ask and a memorized answer. This ancient method of teaching the faith is very effective in getting information memorized. Admittedly, during the moving process and even a little bit before that we have not been faithful to do this. And there have been many other times where we have been slack to do what we should be doing for any number of reasons or excuses. Sometimes a little of both. But the short question and answer gives our children an understanding of basic things about the faith. These are questions such as:
- Who made you? God made me.
- What else did God make? God made all things, God made everything.
- How can you glorify God? By loving Him and doing what He commands.
- Will God ever die? No, God lives forever.
- Why did God make you? I was made to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
- What is sin? Sin is disobedience against God’s perfect law by failing to do what God commands, or doing what God forbids.
We also taught and recite the Apostles Creed together and also the Lord’s Prayer.
We have also often done other Bible Studies with our kinds over particular psalms or other passages of Scripture. Sometimes those have been books that were made for family Bible studies. Those things encompass what I would call our formal learning time.
And those things that we learn formally, end up working like hooks to hang everything else on. The formal learning ends up helping me to teach informally. When I’m outside and my child asks a question, I can relate it to the catechism or the Creed or something else that we have learned. When I’m asked why people do bad things, I can bring up the catechism and work from there.
I may ask a few of the catechism questions to get our grounding. “What happened to Adam and Eve when they sinned?” The answer is that “instead of being holy and happy, they became sinful and miserable.” And then I might ask “What did Adam’s sin do to you?” The answer is, “it made me guilty and sinful.” These were memorized in our formal learning time around the dinner table.
And my answer to the question can be rooted in what we have already learned together. There have been times where simply pondering the catechism questions have jogged the brain and helped my daughter to come up with the answer. In this case, Adam’s sin made everyone guilty and sinful. All people are sinful, and some people sin in worse ways than others. So, we don’t have to learn a whole new topic. We have hooks to hang that new information on. And we can discuss all sorts of things this way.
And this informal teaching encompasses all of life. It is a teaching that always happens. When our children go to bed, we teach them to pray and trust God. Sleep can be a scary thing. Our bodies shut down for the night and we hope that we rise again in the morning, so we pray and entrust ourselves to God as we drift off into slumber. When we wake up, we teach them to pray and devote the day to the Lord. Before we eat, we thank God for providing for us. As we eat, we talk about the day to come and how we honor the Lord with it. When our children disobey, we teach them that God gave them Mommies and Daddies to have authority over them and as they obey their Mommies and Daddies they are obeying God. And as they disobey them, they are disobeying God. And we teach them to be people who live under God-given authority. When the sun rises and sets, we teach them about the beauty and power of God. When someone is in need, we bring them alongside us to help them and teach them about what God says about helping others. And after a long day of teaching is done, we again teach them to entrust their self to the Lord as they drift off into slumber.
This formal and informal teaching will be done by both parents, but it was obviously the women in Timothy’s life that did this for him. It was his mother and his grandmother. And in a society that attempts to belittle the role of parents and thinks little of motherhood, it is important to understand that Paul saw that it was the faith of Timothy’s mother and grandmother that had been passed down.
Conclusion
Our society wants you to think little of motherhood. But you should not. This is the only passage of Scripture that mentions these two women, but their faithfulness was recorded for our benefit. So, we learn from these two ladies about passing down the faith from generation to generation. And in them we are reminded of the importance of a godly mother in the life of a child.
I would like to end today by reading a bit from Charles Spurgeon discussing his mother. As a Baptist Preacher in the 1800’s he earned the nickname, “The Prince of Preachers”. He has been loved and admired since then for his gospel preaching, so much so that you will occasionally run into a child with his middle name, “Haddon”. Anyway, these words beautifully illustrate what we have discussed here today.
“I was privileged with godly parents, watched with jealous eyes, scarcely ever permitted to mingle with questionable associates, warned not to listen to anything profane or licentious, and taught the way of God from my youth up. There came a time when the solemnities of eternity pressed upon me for a decision, and when a mother’s tears and a father’s supplications were offered to Heaven on my behalf. At such a time, had I not been helped by the grace of God, but had I been left alone to do violence to conscience, and to struggle against conviction, I might perhaps have been at this moment dead, buried, and doomed, having through a course of vice brought myself to my grave, or I might have been as earnest a ringleader amongst the ungodly as I now desire to be an eager champion for Christ and His truth.
I do speak of myself with many deep regrets of heart. I hid as it were my face from Him, and I let the years run round,—not without twinges of conscience, not without rebukes, when I knew how much I needed a Saviour; not without the warnings which came from others whom I saw happy and rejoicing in Christ, while I had no share in His salvation. Still, I put it off, as others are doing, from day to day, and month to month, and thought that Christ might come in some odd hour, and when I had nothing else to do, I might think of Him whose blood could cleanse me. O my soul, I could fain smite thee now! Truly, I could lay this rod about my own heart to think that weeks and months should have rolled over my head, and I should have hid as it were my face from Christ in wilful neglect of my dear Lord whose heart had bled for me.
Children are often very reticent to their parents. Often and often have spoken I with young lads about their souls, and they have told me they could not talk to fathers upon such matters. I know it was so with me. When I was under concern of soul, the last persons I should have elected to speak to upon religion would been my parents,—not through want of love to them, nor absence of love on their part; but so it was. A strange feeling of diffidence pervades a seeking soul, and drives it from its friends. Yet I cannot tell how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother. It was the custom, on Sunday evenings, while we were yet little children, for her to stay at home with us, and then we sat round the table, and read verse by verse, and she explained the Scripture to us. After that was done, then came the time of pleading; there was a little piece of Alleine’s Alarm, or of Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, and this was read with pointed observations made to each of us as we sat round the table; and the question was asked, how long it would be before we would think about our state, how long before we would seek the Lord. Then came a mother’s prayer, and some of the words of that prayer we shall never forget, even when our hair is grey. I remember, on one occasion, her praying thus: “Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the day of judgment if they lay not hold of Christ.” That thought of a mother’s bearing swift witness against me, pierced my conscience, and stirred my heart. When I was a child, if I had done anything wrong, I did not need anybody to tell me of it; I told myself of it, and I have cried myself to sleep many a time with the consciousness that I had done wrong; and when I came to know the Lord, I felt very grateful to Him because He had given me a tender conscience.
Fathers and mothers are the most natural agents for God to use in the salvation of their children. I am sure that, in my early youth, no teaching ever made such an impression upon my mind as the instruction of my mother; neither can I conceive that, to any child, there can be one who will have such influence over the heart as the mother who has so tenderly cared for her offspring. A man with a soul so dead as not to be moved by the sacred name of “mother” is creation’s blot. Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother. Certainly I have not the powers of speech with which to set forth my valuation of the choice blessing which the Lord bestowed on me in making me the son of one who prayed for me, and prayed with me. How can I ever forget her tearful eye when she warned me to escape from the wrath to come? I thought her lips right eloquent; others might not think so, but they certainly were eloquent to me. How can I ever forget when she bowed her knee, and with her arms about my neck, prayed, “Oh, that my son might live before Thee!” Nor can her frown be effaced from my memory,—that solemn, loving frown, when she rebuked my budding iniquities; and her smiles have never faded from my recollection,—the beaming of her countenance when she rejoiced to see some good thing in me towards the Lord God of Israel.
Well do I remember hearing my father speak of an incident that greatly impressed him. He used to be frequently away from home preaching, and at one time, as he was on his way to a service, he feared that he was neglecting his own family while caring for the souls of others. He therefore turned back, and went to his home. On arriving there, he was surprised to find no one in the lower rooms of the house; but, on ascending the stairs, he heard a sound as of someone engaged in prayer. On listening at the bedroom door, he discovered that it was my mother, pleading most earnestly for the salvation of all her children, and specially praying for Charles, her first-born and strong-willed son. My father felt that he might safely go about his Master’s business while his dear wife was caring so well for the spiritual interests of the boys and girls at home, so he did not disturb her, but proceeded at once to fulfil his preaching engagement.
My mother said to me, one day, “Ah, Charles! I often prayed the Lord to make you a Christian, but I never asked that you might become a Baptist.” I could not resist the temptation to reply, “Ah, mother! the Lord has answered your prayer with His usual bounty, and given you exceeding abundantly above what you asked or thought.””[1]
R. Dwain Minor
[1] https://www.princeofpreachers.org/quotes/charles-spurgeons-tribute-to-his-godly-mother