By What Authority

"By What Authority?" by Robert Hugh Benson is the author's first historical fiction novel. Through the fictitious tale he weaves, Benson explores the way religion was reformed in England during the rule of Queen Elizabeth the first. However, unlike many books that comment on this time, this book is told through the perspective of a Roman Catholic, the minority religion at the time.

Fully revised and updated, this handbook shows readers how to exercise authority in the spiritual realm, providing protection for themselves and others and transforming lives.

"Standing on the shoulders of C.S. Lewis", Kreeft provides a look at the nature of heaven. A refreshingly clear, theologically sound glimpse of the "undiscovered country". Kreeft speaks to the heart and the mind for an unexcelled look at one of the most popular, yet least understood, subjects in religion.

Adult males did not simply stand up and speak. They needed authorization to exercise public voice. Why should anyone listen to them? In his first four chapters, Luke achieves this for Jesus, a process we access in two ways. In part 1, we examine how Luke establishes this by employing social-science models, which inform our understanding beyond what typical commentaries can achieve. We begin this by considering Luke 1–4 in terms of the social-science communications model, which exposes how God, as Sender-of-Senders, repeatedly sends Messages about Jesus, which cumulatively establish him with a public role and status, and so with public voice. Jesus’ ethos can be described by considering him in terms of typical group-oriented personality and by means of rituals of status elevation and confirmation, which dramatize his worthiness to have public voice. Part 2 consists of rhetorical materials that inform us on how typical beginnings began. Ancient rhetoric also taught formal ways to construct a proper ethos, both for authors and those about whom they spoke. Finally, Luke himself needs a proper ethos to warrant our acceptance of him as a reliable narrator, which he achieves in his prologue. Jesus deserves public voice.

After the apostles Peter and John had healed the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, the two disciples were arrested and later brought before the Sanhedrin to account for their deed, one that continued to stir the already anxious leaders of the Jews: "And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, "By what power, or by what name, have ye done this?" (Acts 4:7). Indeed, what was the source of their miracle? And by what power or authority did they perform it? Those queries ring through the centuries because people in our day still pose the questions. Most Christians want to be a part of a denomination or organization that is true, faithful to what existed in the first century, authorised, and therefore approved of God. They want to know, in other words, that God is governing among his people, that he is empowering the body of Christ of which they are a part. The essays in this book address the central issue of such authority in the Christian life. --Book Jacket.

"John Thiel attempts to counter this tendency toward "ecclesiastical fundamentalism" by proposing an interpretive schema for tradition analogous to the four senses of scripture."--BOOK JACKET.

Everybody who follows Jesus will encounter a myriad of “authorities” that directly challenge the authority of Christ. These other “authorities” may be parents, teachers, bosses, presidents, institutions, religions, or ideologies. In order to stay firm in devotion to Jesus, we must believe that He has supreme authority over all. Not partial authority, not most authority—all authority. On the basis of his authority, he commissioned his people to go and make disciples among every people group on earth. This is an impossible commission if it were not for the promise that he is with them forever. The doctrine of the supreme authority of Christ not only upholds the work of the church, it is the central message that the church preaches. “Jesus is Lord” is good news! Joey Shaw is the International Field Office Director for the Austin Stone Community Church and a regular contributor at Verge. Joey and his family live outside the United States where they serve unreached peoples for the glory of Christ.

Annihilation is the first volume in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Authority is the second, and Acceptance is the third. Area X—a remote and lush terrain—has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; all the members of the second expedition committed suicide; the third expedition died in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another; the members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within months of their return, all had died of aggressive cancer. This is the twelfth expedition. Their group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain and collect specimens; to record all their observations, scientific and otherwise, of their surroundings and of one another; and, above all, to avoid being contaminated by Area X itself. They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them, and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another, that change everything. After the disastrous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the Southern Reach—the secret agency that monitors these expeditions—is in disarray. In Authority, John Rodriguez, aka “Control,” is the team’s newly appointed head. From a series of interrogations, a cache of hidden notes and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, the secrets of Area X begin to reveal themselves—and what they expose pushes Control to confront disturbing truths about both himself and the agency he’s promised to serve. And the consequences will spread much further than that. It is winter in Area X in Acceptance. A new team embarks across the border on a mission to find a member of a previous expedition who may have been left behind. As they press deeper into the unknown—navigating new terrain and new challenges—the threat to the outside world becomes more daunting. The mysteries of Area X may have been solved, but their consequences and implications are no less profound—or terrifying.