In Reply | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 13, 1876

In Reply.

“And he [Paul] said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Acts 9:5.

We are asked for an explanation of the latter clause of the text, “It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” The word kentron, rendered pricks here and in Acts 26:14, signifies goad, and was particularly applied to an instrument used to spur or goad on oxen when required to draw heavy loads. The instrument was usually composed of a pointed iron fastened to or inserted in the end of a stick. From the fact that the ox, or other animal that was goaded, especially the younger and less experienced animals, would sometimes, when goaded, kick against the goad, thus receiving greater injury while gaining no advantage, kicking against the goad, or against goads, came to be a saying to express the fruitlessness and folly of resisting authority. This saying was not confined to the Jews, but was common among the Greeks, by whom it was not considered too homely to be worthy of frequent use by writers. That and similar expressions are not unfrequently met with.

One writer says, “I, who am a frail mortal, should rather sacrifice to him who is God than by giving place to anger; kick against the goads.” Another says, “These things have come to my recollection; for it is foolishness for thee to kick against goads.” And one says to a friend, “Thou stretchest out thy foot against goads, seeing the fierce monarch governs according to his own will.” The idea intended to be conveyed by the saying, or proverb, is not mere futility of resistance to irresistible authority or power, but a resistance which either directly produces, or results in, additional injury—injury which would not otherwise be sustained.

Thus we find, in that part of the text to which our attention is directed, two facts stated—by implication, it is true, but none the less plainly stated. In the first place, Paul felt certain pricks, or goads, and, secondly, he resisted them. What were they? Notwithstanding Paul affirmed before Agrippa, “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth,” we are prepared to affirm, on the authority of the text under consideration, the precise language of which Paul himself quoted in his eloquent address to Agrippa, that underneath all the zeal which he displayed in the persecution of the church, there were misgivings as to the course he was pursuing, a feeling, though he perhaps scarcely dared own it even to himself, that the Christian doctrines might be true, and Christ the promised Messiah; and that this feeling grew, and, under the influence of evidence which he could not deny, became more and more pronounced, pricking and goading him to acknowledge, rather than persecute, Christ, and that he sought to resist the goadings by applying himself the closer to the wretched work of threatenings and slaughter.—Herald of Life.