Lives of Scripture

Lois is named once in Scripture, in Paul's second letter to her grandson Timothy: "I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well" (2 Timothy 1:5). No episode or action of hers is recorded -- only Paul's confident testimony that genuine faith took root in her first, before being handed down through her daughter Eunice to her grandson Timothy. Acts identifies Timothy's father as a Greek, not a believer (Acts 16:1, 3), which makes the household's faith formation a matter credited to its women -- Lois foremost. Paul elsewhere reminds Timothy that he had known "the sacred writings" from childhood (2 Timothy 3:15), formation that traces most naturally back through Eunice to Lois as the family's first believer named in the text. Lois's entire biblical portrait is this single line, yet Paul considered her faith significant enough to name specifically, to the very grandson she had helped raise into a church leader now entrusted with carrying the gospel forward.