XVI.
(1) A certain disciple was there, named Timotheus. — We read with a special interest the first mention of the name of one who was afterwards so dear to the Apostle, his “true son in the faith” (1 Timothy 1:2). On his probable conversion on St. Paul’s first mission in Lystra, see Notes on Acts 14:6; Acts 14:19. We have to think of him as still young; probably, as his youth is spoken of some twelve years later in 1 Timothy 4:12, not more than eighteen or twenty; but in the six years that had passed since St. Paul’s departure he had been conspicuous for his devotion and “unfeigned faith.” He had been trained to know the sacred Books of Israel from his childhood (2 Timothy 3:15); and the fact that he had obtained a good report from the brethren at Iconium as well as Lystra shows that he had been already employed in carrying on intercourse between the two churches. The way in which St. Paul writes to him, and of him, implies a constitution naturally not strong, and, in after life, weakened by a rigorous asceticism (1 Timothy 5:23), emotional even to tears (2 Timothy 1:4), naturally shrinking from hardships and responsibilities, yet facing them in the strength of Christ (1 Corinthians 16:10). The name Timotheus was not uncommon. It is found in 2Ma. 12:21-24, as belonging to a general defeated by Judas Maccabeus, and appears in early Christian inscriptions in the Vatican Museum. Its meaning (“one who honours God”) made it a suitable name for the child of a proselyte.
The son of a certain woman. — Literally, of a certain woman, a faithful (or believing) Jewess. The adjective is the same as that used by Lydia of herself in Acts 16:15; 2 Timothy 1:4, tells us that her name was Eunike, and her mother’s Lois. They were both devout, and had trained the child in the Law (2 Timothy 3:15); and this makes it probable that the father was a proselyte of the gate. He naturally thought it sufficient that his child should grow up under the same religious conditions as himself, and they had either thought so, or had yielded to his will.
His father was a Greek. — Literally, of a Greek father. The adjective is used, as in the New Testament generally, to express the fact that he was a heathen. (See Notes on Acts 11:20; Mark 7:26.) It seems, on the whole, probable that he was still living.