Timothy's mother. "In her unfeigned faith made its dwelling" (enookesen); a believing Jewess, but wedded to Timothy's father a Greek, i.e. a pagan (Acts 16:1). It is an undesigned coincidence, and so a mark of truth, that in the history just as in the epistle the faith of the mother alone is mentioned, no notice is taken of the father. Probably converted at Paul's first visit to Lystra (Acts 14:6-7). The one parent's faith sanctified the child (1 Corinthians 7:14). The Scriptures were her chief teaching to Timothy from childhood (2 Timothy 3:15). Lois, her pious mother and Timothy's grandmother, had doubtless taught herself in them: hereditary piety.