Home Bible School
Before he ever met the Apostle Paul, the life of young Timothy was already full of blessings. Indeed, Paul himself, among the last lines he wrote on this earth, reminded Timothy of those blessings: “But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 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” (2 Tim. 3:14–15).
Both Paul and Timothy knew who were the latter’s first teachers of Holy Scripture. Paul wrote earlier in this same epistle, “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” (1:5).
These two women, Timothy’s mother and grandmother, had raised him, not only in the faith but also in the study of the Sacred Writings, ta hiera grammata—sacred grammar. It was this early study of Sacred Letters, carried on in the home, that grounded the soul of young Timothy and prepared him to become, in due course, an apostle of the Church and the bishop of Ephesus. The whole Church, for the past 2,000 years, owes to these two women an immense and unpayable debt of gratitude.
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Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor emeritus of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and the author of numerous books, including, most recently, Out of Step with God: Orthodox Christian Reflections on the Book of Numbers (Ancient Faith Publishing, 2019).
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