I find the variation between translations very interesting here.

I wanted to thank you for your post. I like how you said it’s ‘funny how God directs people to your site!’ It is that you have chosen to obey Him and spread the Good News of His freedom in Christ in an easily accessible manner. And for that, I humbly thank you.

The Gospel is simple. It is people like me who try to make it difficult to the point that I miss Jesus and His saving grace. I have suffered with depression and anxiety for years now. I am awake at this time because the Lord woke me up and wanted to teach me some things. He reminded me of a previous study of Paul’s conversion and the link between my depression and unyielding spirit.

Now to figure out exactly HOW to yield my spirit to Him …
Prayer and supplication.
Prayer and supplication.

“Saul, Saul, why are you continuing to persecute Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” What it really was like saying Saul, give up, you can’t win. Why are you continuing to do this against such odds? The implication here is that Paul was terribly unsuccessful, that he had a miserable time trying to get Christians to recant and blaspheme. Unsuccessful! He was fighting something that he was supposed to be submitting to. It was a losing battle. He was smashing his head against a stone wall. He was trying to kick against the goads. Goads were little sharp things. Let me give you a little idea of what they were. When a young ox was first being trained to be tied up to a yoke to pull a single plow, one ox on a single plow, the ox upon being tied would kick naturally trying to throw off the yoke. And so the farmer would have a long stick and the end would be sharpened down, very hard wood, to a point like a pume, like a spear. And when the ox began to kick he merely took the stick and held it behind the heels of the ox in the yoke. And as the ox kicked it just rammed its heel right up the spear. And after a while the ox would stop doing that. It wasn’t a dumb ox.
And then there were occasions when a team of oxen would be attached to a wagon or a multiple plow. And they would hand on the front of the plow a long board stretching all the way across running right behind the heels of the oxen. It would be filled with spikes. And as they would kick they would just puncture their heels and soon they would cease kicking. This is how a young ox learned submission, the hard way.
Paul was a young ox. He was learning the hard way that you can’t keep kicking against Jesus Christ without getting stuck.

I think Jesus was trying to tell Paul that there is a much easier way than to continue resisting Him. I like to refer to Matthew 11:29 which is another oxen metaphor. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Once that yoke is accepted, then the goad is laid aside and the healing of the wounds can begin.

Thanks again for commenting and may God bless you also.

Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork, that men
must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.

Have a Merry Christmas.
-
Mike