”I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and now, I am convinced, is in you also.” (2 Timothy 1:5)
No doubt grandmother Lois and mother Eunice united in teaching the little one. Who should teach the children but the parents? Timothy’s father was a Greek, and probably a heathen, but his child was happy in having a venerable grandmother, so often the dearest of all relatives to a little child. He had also a gracious mother, once a devout Jewish woman, and afterward, also a firmly believing Christian, who made it her daily pleasure to teach her own dear child the Word of the Lord.
O, dear mothers, you have a very sacred trust reposed in you by God! He has in effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay your wages” (Exodus 2:9). You are called to equip the future man of God, that he may be thoroughly furnished unto every good work (2 Timothy 3:16–17). If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve him.
Those who think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your offspring is your first and most pressing duty. Christian women, by teaching children the Holy Scriptures, are as much fulfilling their part for the Lord, as Moses in judging Israel, or Solomon in building the temple.
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