Lois

Lois (Greek, meaning better or more desirable) was the maternal grandmother of Timothy, Paul's most trusted associate and co-worker. She is mentioned once in the New Testament, in 2 Timothy 1:5, where Paul expresses his confidence in Timothy's genuine faith, noting that it dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice. This is the only biblical reference that explicitly identifies three generations of believing women and traces the transmission of faith from grandmother to mother to son.

Lois was almost certainly a Jewish woman from Lystra in Lycaonia, the home of Timothy's family (Acts 16:1). Paul's Letter to the Galatians suggests that Timothy's mother Eunice was a believing Jew who had raised Timothy in the Scriptures from childhood (2 Tim. 3:14–15), making Lois the likely source of the Hebrew scriptural tradition in which Timothy was formed. The commendation of Lois by name in Paul's final letter gives her a unique place of honor in New Testament memory as the origin of a family line of faith that helped shape the early church's leadership.