If you don't accept the authority of the apostles, you are thereby rejecting the authority of Christ.

And if you reject the authority of Christ, you therefore reject the authority of God.

It's very fashionable in our own day for people to distinguish between the authority of Christ and the authority of the apostles.

He will say, well, I believe the teachings of Jesus.

See, I submit to the teachings of Jesus, it's Paul that I can't take, you see.

Or it's John who bothers me.

Those are men, they're not Jesus.

And so people will try to set Paul and Jesus over against each other,

recognizing the authority of Christ,

despising any authority to Paul.

Well, of course, let me remind you that we don't know anything

about Jesus save through the testimony of the Apostles.

They are the primary sources in and of itself that would constitute a certain amount of at least academic authority in the Christian community, but more than that.

If those documents are simply basically reliable, forget now about inspiration or infallibility or inerancy,

which is basically reliable, we can certainly learn enough from them to come to the conclusion that Jesus gave authority to his

apostles that was more than just basically reliable, more than just trustworthy in general.

When he commissioned his apostles, he made this statement unequivocally.

He who hears you hears me.

And those who refuse to hear you, to hear me. The same dispute he had with the Pharisees that said,

we believe in God, it's you, Jesus, that we can't take. Jesus said you can't say that because the Father

bears witness to me and if you're really listening to the Father you will

listen to me. If you reject me, you are rejecting the father. And so in the second century,

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