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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 683. With Lois and Eunice
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With Lois and Eunice
It was to his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother, Lois, that Timothy owed the moulding of his character. St. Paul in his Second Epistle to Timothy speaks with warm appreciation of their faith, and “from a babe” the boy was instructed by them in the sacred writings of the Old Testament. There was never a time in his whole experience when the majestic words, the wonderful cadences, of psalmist and of prophet were unfamiliar to the ear. The Book was no less a part of the growing lad's daily life than the sky above him and the earth beneath his feet. He was in living touch with grace as with nature before the ripening intelligence had learned to harmonize the messages that fell upon the attentive ear. The wistful eyes looked up into the loving face of her who taught, and lo! the words of Scripture on the lips of the believer became, as is their wont, a sacrament of the love of God, and the faith of Eunice, the faith of the aged Lois, passed as through an open door to the heart of their little son.
Happy he
With such a mother! faith in womankind
Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high
Comes easy to him; and tho' he trip and fall,
He shall not blind his soul with clay.
It was so with Timothy. He had inherited the religious instinct from Eunice, and through her influence he remained true to it.
“We must make up our minds,” said Mrs. Booth, “that our children shall not be wicked”; but the misery of to-day is that, in so many cases, it is left to the children to make up their minds, while father and mother look helplessly on. There are mysteries in human character, and sometimes after real care and patience, there are outburstings of passion which baffle all a mother's hope. Temptations, against which nothing could guard, lay hold of some element in a boy's inheritance, and carry him away; but even then the case may not be lost. George Meredith, in one place, says very nobly, “My boy, if he fall, will fall from an actual region of purity. He dare not be a sceptic as to that. Whatever his darkness, he will have the guiding light of a memory behind him; so much is secure.”1 [Note: W. M. Macgregor, Some of God's Ministries, 46.]
Lowell's boyhood was spent in an atmosphere of refinement and culture. His father's library of nearly four thousand volumes included, besides theological treatises, an excellent representative selection of literary classics, ancient and modern, and among these he was allowed to browse at his will. This early miscellaneous reading laid the foundations of the remarkably broad and sound scholarship of his later life. It also gave that distinctively bookish bias to his mind which, amid all the distracting crowd of other interests, he never afterwards lost.1 [Note: W. H. Hudson, Lowell and his Poetry, 17.]
2. St. Paul visited Lystra in the course of his first missionary journey. A work of healing which he wrought so impressed the people that they wished to worship him and Barnabas as Zeus and Hermes. But before long St. Paul's bitter enemies pursued him from Antioch and Iconium; they turned the fickle crowd against the Apostles, a riot ensued, and St. Paul was stoned and left for dead. To the surprise, however, of his friends, he quickly recovered, and, as further work in Lystra would be impossible, left on the next day for Derbe. Although no mention is made of them, it seems certain that Eunice and Timothy were converted and baptized during this first visit, and it is interesting to put together the evidence for this point. In writing his First Epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul declares that he can address them as “my beloved children.” “For though ye should have ten thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I begat you through the gospel.” In other words, he limits the use of “children” to describe those of whom he is the spiritual father, who owe their conversion directly to him. Immediately afterwards he adds: “I have sent unto you Timothy, who is my beloved and faithful child in the Lord.” This seems to imply quite clearly that Timothy also was converted by the Apostle himself. But when did it happen? Not during St. Paul's second visit to Lystra, for when he arrived Timothy was already a disciple “well reported of by the brethren.” Wherefore the evidence seems to show that the conversion of Timothy and Eunice must have been among the unrecorded events of St. Paul's first visit to Lystra. Again, it is probable that Timothy was an eye-witness of St. Paul's stoning in that city. Many years later St. Paul appeals to him by his remembrance of “what things befell me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra”; and indeed the scene would make a lasting impression upon this sensitive youth. In bygone days St. Paul as a youth had witnessed the stoning of Stephen; now he himself was stoned, while another young man, destined also to work nobly in the ministry of the Church, stood by.
One of Millais' freshest and most delightful pictures is termed “The Boyhood of Sir Walter Raleigh.” An adventurer who has sailed and fought in the Spanish Main is recounting his travels and exploits in the West. The animation in his face and his dramatic action show that he is calling into service the powers of a vivid imagination. His audience is composed of two boys, one of whom is the youthful Raleigh, who has ceased now to listen to the sailor's romance and is gazing down the “vistas of a dream.” His heart leaps within him, and his youthful fancy conjures up a glowing picture of romance. “He sees El Dorado, and the palaces of the Aztecs and Incas, temples of the Sun where the sun's face burns in gold, hidden treasures, fair Indian captives, and the fountains of eternal youth.” The call has come to him; the little old-fashioned toy which, before it came, constituted his world, now lies neglected in the corner. In an hour he has grown into youth, and has put childish things away for ever. The end of it all he does not see-the scaffold and the axe-but if he did they would not appal him. He has heard the call, and he must “go out, not knowing whither he goeth.”1 [Note: J. Burns, Illustrations from Art, 60.]
3. Timothy was a lad of about fifteen when St. Paul converted him at Lystra, in or near 45 a.d. Seven years later St. Paul, on his second missionary journey, came again to Lystra. He had just passed through the crisis of his separation from Barnabas, and, while Silas served as a faithful travelling-companion, he was not an intimate friend, as Barnabas had been. The Apostle must have regarded it as a direct gift of Providence that, while thus bereaved, he came once more upon Timothy. For he chose him as his comrade, with the result that the loss of Barnabas was felt no longer. The Apostle had lost a brother, but he gained a son. His personal good opinion of Timothy was strengthened by the testimony of those who knew him well-his fellow-Christians in Lystra and Antioch. So “him would Paul have to go forth with him.”
The conduct of the Apostle of the Gentiles on this occasion has sometimes excited surprise. St. Paul, the great proclaimer of the abrogation of the Law by the Gospel, circumcised the young evangelist. The inconsistency is more apparent than real. It was an instance of his becoming “all things to all men” for the salvation of souls, and of his sacrificing his own convictions in matters that were not essential, rather than cause others to offend. Timothy's father had been a Gentile, and the son, though brought up in his mother's faith, had never been circumcised. To St. Paul circumcision was a worthless rite. The question was whether it was a harmless one. That depended upon circumstances. If, as among the Galatians, it caused people to rely upon the Law and neglect the Gospel, it was a superstitious obstacle with which no compromise could be made. But if it was a passport whereby preachers who would otherwise be excluded might gain access to Jewish congregations, then it was not only a harmless but a useful ceremony. In the synagogue Timothy as an uncircumcised Jew would have been an intolerable abomination, and would never have obtained a hearing. To free him from this crippling disadvantage, St. Paul subjected him to a rite which he himself knew to be obsolete.
It is respectful to bow to the King of England, it is disrespectful to bow to the King of France; it is the rule to curtsy to the Emperor; and the prostration of the whole body is required by Eastern Monarchs. These are established ceremonies, and must be complied with; but why they were established, I defy sense and reason to tell us. It is the same among all ranks, where certain customs are received, and must necessarily be complied with, though by no means the result of sense and reason. As for instance, the very absurd, though almost universal custom of drinking people's healths. Can there be any thing in the world less relative to any other man's health, than my drinking a glass of wine? Common sense, certainly, never pointed it out; but yet common sense tells me I must conform to it. Good sense bids one be civil, and endeavour to please; though nothing but experience and observation can teach one the means, properly adapted to time, place, and persons. This knowledge is the true object of a gentleman's travelling, if he travels as he ought to do. By frequenting good company in every country, he himself becomes of every country; he is no longer an Englishman, a Frenchman, or an Italian; but he is an European; he adopts, respectively, the best manners of every country; and is a Frenchman at Paris, an Italian at Rome, an Englishman at London.1 [Note: Chesterfield, Letters to his Son, iii. 353.]
4. Then followed the ordination, performed with great solemnity by the laying on of the hands of all the elders of the congregation. This we learn, not from the Acts, but from St. Paul's Epistles to Timothy. The Book of Acts simply says of Timothy, “Him would Paul have to go forth with him.” But then when we turn to the Epistles written to Timothy, we find that it was not as an ordinary companion that Timothy was taken. He went forth as St. Paul himself had gone forth from the Church of Antioch, a duly ordained and publicly recognized messenger of Christ. Every circumstance of that day lived in the memory of St. Paul; many years later it is by the remembrance of the gift bestowed by the laying on of hands, by the good confession witnessed, by the prayers and prophecies of the assembled Church, that he appeals to Timothy in his letters.
Spirit of Remembrance, come,
Quickening Spirit, strong and wise,
Bid the slumbering soul arise,
Wake to speech the conscience dumb.
Bring to mind the dreams of youth,
Ere the world our tempter proved;
Show again the things we loved,
And the vows we meant in truth.1 [Note: W. G. Tarrant, Songs Devout, 32.]