How do you tell whether someone is speaking with God’s authority? Plenty of people claim to have been sent by God, but their claims are often shown to be false. Plenty of people look good on the outside, but they are later found out to have been living a lie. We tend to find eloquent, well-presented people believable, but eloquence and presentation are not the determining factors. Paul was faced with the problem of verifying his own credentials when he wrote in the tenth chapter of his second letter to the Corinthians:
“They say, ‘His letters are severe and weighty, but in person he is weak, and what he says is worthless.’ Such people should be aware that what we say in our letters when we are absent will be what we do when we are present. We are not bold enough to classify or compare ourselves with some people who think highly of themselves. There is nothing clever in the way they measure themselves by their own standards, and compare themselves with themselves.”
Ultimately a person’s authority is demonstrated by his or her actions, not by presentation skills or boasting ability. The claims of a person who claims to speak for Christ can be measured by comparing what the person says or does with what Jesus said and did. As Paul goes on to say, “It is not the person who thinks highly of himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord thinks highly of.”