Generational Faith

I attended a worship service where the pastor’s sermon contained no illustrations, antidotes, jokes, examples, or any other extra-biblical material. I found the verse by verse message refreshing and as I left the service I complimented the pastor to his wife. She said, “Thank you…but I wish he would use some of them sometimes. He’s not formally educated [Bible college], he just learned at his mother’s knee.” I’m reminded of the sincere faith of young Timothy, a faith which also lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. I don’t know whether the pastor’s mother is still living, but the generational faith she passed down to her son lives on. Paul told Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self–discipline” (2 Tim 1:6-7 NIV).