Mission with Prophetic Power: The Journal of John Woolman (SRSC 12)

Chapter 8: Finishing Well (1772)

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Discussion Questions

What was a big insight or “take away” from your experience of reading this portion of John Woolman’s Journal ?

One thing we hear a lot about in this section of Woolman’s Journal is transportation. And as usual, Woolman reflects on transportation in

light of how the transportation systems affect others. The sailing business is hard on the young sailors and the roosters. The stagecoach business is hard on the drivers and the horses (by the way, have you noticed that throughout this book Woolman expresses a concern for all God’s creatures?). Our own management practices and consumer habits both contribute and respond to these systems, at times making us “entangled in a spirit of oppression.” Think about our transportation systems today: Who profits? Who suffers from our transportation systems? How might we today become entangled (or free ourselves from an entanglement) in transportation system oppression?

John Woolman has cited Scripture again and again throughout his Journal . He especially seems to identify with the prophetic books. I think

he feels a resonance with the experience and ministry of an itinerant prophet. Go back and look up a few of the passages Woolman quotes. Find a few of your own. What might it mean for us today to take on something of the biblical mantle of a prophet?