By what authority do you these things?
October 4, 2021•264 words
...how ready the enemies of truth are to question the authority of all who do more good than themselves.The chief priests have not a word to say about our Lord's teaching. They make no charge against the lives or conduct of Himself or His followers. The point on which they fasten is his commission--"By what authority do you these things? and who gave you this authority?"
The same charge has often been made against the servants of God, when they have striven to check the progress of ecclesiastical corruption. It is the old weapon by which the children of this world have often labored to stop the progress of revivals and reformations. It is the weapon which was often brandished in the face of the Reformers, the Puritans, and the Methodists of the last century. It is the poisoned arrow which is often shot at city-missionaries and lay-agents in the present day. Too many care nothing for the manifest blessing of God on man's work, so long as he is not sent forth by their own sect or party. It matters nothing to them, that some humble laborer in God's harvest can point to numerous conversions of souls through his instrumentality. They still cry, "By what authority do you these things?"
His success is nothing--they demand his commission. His cures are nothing--they require his diploma. Let us neither be surprised nor moved, when we hear such things. It is the old charge which was brought against Christ Himself. "There is no new thing under the sun." (Eccles. 1:9.)
—J.C. Ryle, 'Expository Thoughts on Matthew’