Allegedly, “to kick against the goads” was a standard expression found in both Greek and Latin literature—a agricultural image, which rose from the practice of farmers goading their oxen in the fields. Though unfamiliar to us, everyone in that day accepted its meaning.

Goads were sometimes made of slim pieces of timber, blunt on one end and pointed on the other. Farmers utilised the pointed end to urge a dour ox into motion.

Often , the beast would kick at the goad. The more the ox kicked, the more probable the goad would stab into the flesh of its leg, causing bigger agony. Saul’s conversion could seem to us as having been a unexpected skirmish with Christ. But based totally on the Lord’s expression relating to his kicking back, I think He’d been working on him for ages prodding and goading him.

I think the words and works of Jesus haunted the enthusiastic Pharisee. Equivalent in age, they would be contemporaries in a town Saul knew well and Jesus often visited. The more it goaded him, the more that he resisted God’s proddings. His words and works follow you deep in your conscience.

That is the reason why I inspire folk who are heightening their attempts to withstand the Gospels’ claims to look at the life of Christ—to inspect scrupulously His charming words. The general public who sincerely pursue them can’t leave Him without at least reevaluating their lives.