After Jesus was resurrected, he told his disciples that “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”. And given that he had just come back from the dead, no-one tried to dispute it with him. But even before Jesus had done something so definitively paradigm-shifting, he was credited with an extraordinary degree of authority in how he lived and interacted with others. People were amazed by his teaching, his conviction, his wisdom, his boldness. They listened. Many of them followed. And then there were the miracles, the healings. Jesus seemed to have some kind of authority over physical bodies, over disturbed minds, over spiritual forces. His authority seemed to touch every dimension of life, and yet he didn’t have any kind of official title or recognised status. So where did it come from? And what does that mean for us? Do we recognise the same authority in Jesus today, do we allow him that authority in our own daily lives? And to what degree has Jesus passed on his authority to us, his flawed and under-achieving followers?