A House Without Walls - Sarah Osborn

1714–96

She didn’t want to cause a scandal. She just invited a small group of church women to her home for a Bible study. If their husbands wanted to come too, well, that was on them. She wasn’t trying to be a pastor. Sarah Osborn just had a gift for teaching, and she needed to use it.

An active member of the First Congregational Church in Newport, Rhode Island, Sarah found a new dimension of faith when the Great Awakening swept through New England in 1740–41, particularly through the preaching of George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent. That’s when she started the women’s Bible study, which proved to be quite popular.

When her husband began to fail in business, she had to earn money by teaching school, so she opened her home to students. But she had such a heart for teaching, she didn’t limit her school to only those who could pay. “I educate the children of poor neighbors who gladly pay me in washing, ironing, mending, making, etc.,” she explained to a friend. She also began to teach slaves—not that she was an abolitionist; she just knew that God loved slaves, too, and in order to read the Bible, they needed to know how to read.

Her church groups continued. When a friend suggested she was wearing herself too thin, Sarah replied, “I always feel stronger when my companies [meetings] break up than when they come in.” She also wrote frequently, keeping regular diaries and composing essays, tracts, and reviews on philosophical and theological issues.

By the 1760s, her home was well known as an education center in Newport, especially for the poor. When revival broke out in the area, as many as three hundred people would attend her Bible studies—men and women, white and black, rich and poor. Yet she insisted she wasn’t trying to take leadership from men or change the structure of society—just teaching the Bible to all who needed to learn it.

There will always be those who read ulterior motives into whatever you do. Don’t let them stop you. There will be naysayers who somehow feel threatened when you do something good. Press on. Grab the gift God has given you and use it for his glory, even if that means breaking through walls to do so.

If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well.

Romans 12:7