2 Timothy 1:5 - Homilies By W.m. Statham

A holy ancestry.

"Thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice." We were constituted to be influenced through the family relationship, and it is sad indeed when the young break away from a religious ancestry, and forsake their fathers' God.

I. HERE IS ALREADY AN HISTORIC PEDIGREE OF CHRISTIAN PEOPLE . The gospel had been long enough in the world to have a history in families. We find three generations here. The grandmother Lois, the mother Eunice, and "thee also."

II. HERE IS THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL MANIFESTED . Unfeigned faith, or undissembled faith. No mere creed. No mere appearance of piety, in that age men of education despised the pagan faiths which they yet professed to believe. They kept up their actual adherence to heathen worship because of custom or family tradition, or because they believed religion in some sort to be the protective police of society, without which there would be revolution. This unfeigned faith was the faith of conviction—the faith that so believed in the risen Christ that it could endure persecution and suffer loss, and live or die for the sake of Christ, with the sure hope of eternal life.— W.M.S.