"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.

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.

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.

This book would be well worth reading as a survey of human progress towards World Order from the Code of the Hammurabi to the concept of International Law, as an outline of governmental institutions from the Roman Empire to the United Nations, as an objective consideration of universal programmes as diverse as Functional Federalism and State Shintoism. But the book is even more worth reading as a masterly analysis of current problems and principles, spiritual, political and scientific, which affect mankind in its quest for harmony and unity. But the reason why this book must be read by everyone concerned for the issues of War or Peace is because it makes a major contribution towards the solution of our international difficulties. The author gives here not only an answer – but perhaps The Answer – to the great question of our time. This book has something to tell which is NEWS, real and thrilling news, which thousands the world over will want to hear about and discuss. An enterprise has been begun – not just contemplated or proposed – which none of the Governments could have undertaken and which, in its fruition, can transform the international situation. The unexpectedness of the new agency may arouse controversy and even criticism in some quarters but by most it will be warmly and thankfully welcomed.