Spiritual Parentage

The Bible’s language associated with spiritual parentage addresses Timothy as a genuine child in the faith and calls Onesimus a child (1 Timothy 1:2; Philemon 1:10). Timothy is also called a beloved child and “my child”; one passage sets a charge before him, and another tells him to be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:2; 1 Timothy 1:18; 2 Timothy 2:1). The word or idea recurs in at least 5 verses across 3 books and 4 episodes.