The Influence of a Mother
2 Timothy 1:1-5
Happy Mother’s Day! We are glad to honor our mothers, not because it is a commercially promoted holiday, but because it is fundamental to our faith! “Honor your father and mother” is one of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16), and that debt of honor and responsibility to our parents was defended by Jesus in Matthew 15 and reaffirmed by Paul in Ephesians 6:2. Mothers mold and shape their children’s character and future.
The powerful influence of a Godly mother.
The Bible tells several stories about women, that give us deep insights into what mothers are capable and willing to do for their children. Paul recognized this when he told Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well” (2 Timothy 1:5).
In other words, Timothy was the kind of man that he was because of the kind of mother and grandmother that he’d been blessed with. Their faith and love for God helped shape Timothy into being a powerful servant for God.
The powerful influence of the “other mothers.”
In Romans 16, we find a list of individuals in the church at Rome to whom Paul sends his greetings. It’s only a brief mention but it is here we find a reference to the mother of Rufus. In Romans 16:13, Paul writes: “Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.” When Paul writes that the mother of Rufus “became a mother to me, also” it is that spiritual sense to which he refers.
Over the years I have seen so many “other mothers” who don’t get a lot of recognition but have been such a blessing to children not their own. A Bible school teacher who recognizes a new child and befriends that child providing extra attention and support. It could be a grandmother like Lois. It could be an adoptive mother or a stepmother who has a heart big enough to provide a Christian home for a child not her own. It could even be a mother-in-law like Naomi who modeled the love of God as she developed a deep and abiding friendship with her daughter-in-law Ruth.
For all our mothers, physical and spiritual, for all those godly women who have had a spiritual impact on our lives, we give thanks today!