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Scripture: Luke 15:11–32 (ESV)

What does it really mean to be close to God?

In one of His most familiar parables, Jesus tells the story of two sons and a father whose love reaches out to both. We often focus on the younger son, who demands his inheritance, walks away from home and eventually finds himself broken by the consequences of his rebellion. But there is another son in this story, one who never physically leaves home, yet whose heart is just as distant from his father.

One is lost in the far country. The other is lost in the father's house.

In this episode, we explore the deeper meaning of Jesus' parable in Luke 15:11–32, examining the destructive nature of sin, the importance of genuine repentance, the overwhelming compassion of the Father, and the danger of religious self-righteousness.

The younger son wanted the father's gifts without the father. The older son appeared to want the father's reward without sharing the father's heart. Both needed to understand what it meant to truly belong to him.

Perhaps the greatest question this passage leaves us with is not simply whether we have wandered away from God, but whether our hearts have become more interested in what we can receive from Him than in knowing Him.

The greatest gift is not what the Father puts into our hands. It is that we get to be with Him.

Join us as we consider which son we resemble, what genuine repentance looks like, and why God's mercy should produce rejoicing rather than resentment when sinners come home.

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Why do Christians disagree about the bible? Interpretation, Context, and the Responsibility to Read Well

If Christians believe the Bible is the authoritative Word of God, why do they sometimes arrive at such different conclusions about what it teaches?

How can sincere believers read the same passage and understand it differently? And how do we distinguish a faithful interpretation of Scripture from an interpretation shaped by our own assumptions, traditions, or preferences?

In this third episode of Rightly Handling the Word of Truth, Roland O’Neil Albertus explores the responsibility of handling Scripture carefully. We examine the importance of historical and literary context, biblical genre, authorial intent, and the distinction between what Scripture explicitly says, what we infer from it, and how we apply its teaching.

We also consider the role of teachers, tradition, scholarship, and the Holy Spirit in understanding God's Word, while recognising that our interpretations remain subject to the authority of Scripture.

The authority of Scripture is absolute. The authority of our interpretation is not.

This episode challenges us to approach God's Word with intellectual honesty, interpretive humility, and a willingness to be corrected. Because genuine biblical discernment requires more than defending what we believe. It requires being prepared to examine why we believe it.

Rightly Handling the Word of Truth | Episode 3

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When someone says, “God told me,” how do you know whether the message truly comes from the Holy Spirit? How should Christians evaluate prophetic words, spiritual impressions, and claims of divine guidance?

In this episode of Reasonable Christianity, Roland O’Neil Albertus explores the relationship between the Holy Spirit, Scripture, spiritual gifts, and biblical discernment. If we believe the gifts of the Spirit continue today, how should we test claims of personal revelation against the written Word of God?

Drawing from John 14–16, 1 Corinthians 12–14, 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21, and 1 John 4, we examine what the Bible teaches about the Spirit’s work, the purpose of spiritual gifts, and the responsibility of believers to test spiritual claims.

We also confront a serious danger: using the words “God told me” to silence questions, control others, or place personal impressions beyond biblical examination.

This conversation is for Christians who want to take the Holy Spirit seriously while growing in biblical understanding and spiritual discernment. Discover how to remain open to the Spirit’s work without allowing personal experiences, prophetic claims, or human interpretations to displace Scripture as our final authority.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Holy Spirit’s work in relation to Scripture
• Biblical prophecy and the testing of spiritual claims
• The difference between spiritual illumination, guidance, and authoritative revelation
• How to practise biblical discernment without dismissing spiritual gifts
• Why every claim of divine guidance must be examined

This is Episode 2 of Rightly Handling the Word of Truth, a series examining biblical authority and how we faithfully understand and apply God’s Word.

Reasonable Christianity with Roland O’Neil Albertus

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Who Has the Final Word? When Scripture, Christian tradition, respected theologians and personal spiritual experiences seem to disagree, how do we determine what is actually true?

In Part 1 of Rightly Handling the Word of Truth, Roland O’Neil Albertus explores Sola Scriptura, the Protestant doctrine that Scripture alone possesses final, infallible authority over Christian faith and practice.

Beginning with an honest correction of his own interpretation of 2 Peter 1:19, Roland examines the biblical foundations of Scripture's authority, the relationship between the Bible and apostolic tradition, and the role of the Christian community in recognising and interpreting God's Word.

He also tackles some of the strongest objections to Sola Scriptura. Who determined the biblical canon? Why do Protestants disagree? And does the authority of Scripture make Christian tradition and theological teachers unnecessary?

Ultimately, this episode confronts a deeply personal question: When God's Word challenges what we believe, are we willing to be corrected?

Explore biblical authority, Christian apologetics and the importance of handling Scripture faithfully.

Follow Reasonable Christianity for Part 2: Did the Spirit Tell You That?

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Does the Bible really require the doctrine of the Trinity, or can the biblical language of Father, Son and Holy Spirit be explained by Oneness theology?

In Part 2 of Who Is the One God?, Roland Albertus puts the Trinitarian conclusion from Episode 1 under real pressure by examining the strongest texts commonly used for Oneness theology: “I and the Father are one,” “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father,” “Everlasting Father,” the fullness of deity in Christ, and baptism in the name of Jesus.  Pasted text

Rather than trading proof texts, this episode asks a more disciplined question: What does each passage actually establish?

We then bring the wider biblical witness together, including Christ’s deity, the personal activity of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of Jesus, Hebrews 1, Matthew 28:19, and the repeated New Testament pattern of Father, Son and Spirit.

But the episode goes further than doctrine. If the Trinity reaches into the very shape of the gospel, what does that mean for salvation, prayer, worship and our understanding of who Jesus is? And can someone sincerely trust Christ while holding a confused or incomplete doctrine of God?  Pasted text

This is not theology for argument’s sake.

It is about knowing the God Jesus says is eternal life.  Pasted text

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Does the Bible teach that God is one Person, or one God in three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

In Part 1 of Who Is the One God?, Roland Albertus examines the biblical doctrine of the Trinity alongside Oneness Pentecostalism and Modalism. Before asking whether Trinitarian theology is biblical, we define what Christians actually mean by being, nature, and person, and ask whether “one God in three Persons” is logically contradictory.

Working through Deuteronomy 6, John 1, John 14 and John 17, we examine biblical monotheism, the deity of Christ, the relationship between the Father and Son before creation, and the personal distinction of the Holy Spirit.

Does “God is one” mean that God is one Person? What does Jesus mean when He speaks of the glory He shared with the Father before the world existed?

This episode begins with Scripture and asks a foundational question:

Who is the God the Bible actually reveals?

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How far should government go?

Government is necessary. Authority is necessary. Justice must be administered, the vulnerable must be protected, and public order must be maintained. But what happens when government moves beyond its proper authority and begins taking responsibility for things God entrusted to families, communities, and individuals?

In Episode 4 of South Africa Unmade, we examine the fourth foundation beneath a nation’s decline: Government Overreach.

South Africa provides the case study, but the question is much bigger than South Africa. Across the world, governments are wrestling with questions of welfare, family responsibility, public debt, municipal failure, social provision, individual responsibility, and the proper limits of state power.

This episode explores:

• The biblical purpose and limits of government
• Romans 13 and the authority God gives to rulers
• Why the family existed before the state
• Municipal collapse and the failure of public institutions
• The growing role of the state as provider and enforcer
• Social grants, maintenance enforcement, and fatherhood
• The relationship between government, family and personal responsibility
• What happens when the state begins defining areas beyond its proper authority
• Why Christian political thought must begin with the sovereignty of God

The question is not whether government should exist or whether government should ever intervene. The deeper question is whether government understands the limits of the authority it has been given.

This episode is part of the South Africa Unmade podcast series, based on the book South Africa Unmade: The Foundations Beneath a Nation’s Decline by Roland O’Neil Albertus.

The book goes deeper into the historical, political, economic and theological foundations examined throughout this series.

The truth matters. And so do you.

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Am I my brother's keeper? The oldest question in the Bible explains why grievance becomes politics.

When need becomes entitlement and grievance becomes politics, someone always steps forward to name the debtor. In this episode of South Africa Unmade, Roland Albertus opens the question beneath South Africa's politics of dependency, resentment and fatherlessness: how is a human being formed?

We begin in Genesis 4, with Cain's anger, God's command to rule over it, and the answer every politics of grievance has given since. Then we test that pattern against what has happened in South Africa: an emergency grant meant to last six months, now in its sixth year; a Durban school at the centre of a claim that ran ahead of the enrolment figures; and the empty chair in the home, where a child first learns what responsibility means.

This episode is not an argument against helping the poor. It is an argument about what happens when relief never becomes mobility, and about what the gospel says to the ledger every one of us keeps.

THE BOOK
This episode draws on Part III of South Africa Unmade: A Christian Diagnosis of Post-Apartheid Governance and National Decline, releasing 29 September. Its three chapters are The Economics of Dependency, Resentment as Politics, and Fatherlessness and the Collapse of Moral Formation.
https://www.takealot.com/south-africa-unmade/PLID103345265

NEXT EPISODE
Leviathan: the state that grows beyond its bounds, municipal collapse, and a government reaching into the home.

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What happens when government becomes more than an instrument of justice and begins to become the answer to our deepest social problems?

In Episode 2 of South Africa Unmade, Roland O’Neil Albertus examines the rise of the state as an instrument of transformation in South Africa, from the political philosophy behind cadre deployment to institutional capture and the crisis within state-owned enterprises such as Eskom and Transnet.

But beneath the politics is a deeper question: where have we placed our trust?

The Bible gives government a legitimate and necessary role in society. Romans 13 teaches that governing authority exists under God and is accountable to Him. Scripture also repeatedly warns us against placing our ultimate confidence in human rulers. When government is given responsibilities and expectations that exceed its proper purpose, political power can become increasingly difficult to limit.

Through South Africa’s experience, we explore the relationship between political power, government, state capture, cadre deployment, state ownership, institutional accountability and Christian theology. We also consider the wider question for Christians in other nations, including America: what happens when we begin looking to the state as our provider, protector and source of flourishing?

This is not a call to political withdrawal. It is a call to put government in its proper place.

Government can serve the good of a people. It cannot become the source of their ultimate good.

South Africa Unmade is a five-part podcast series exploring the foundations beneath South Africa’s decline and the deeper ideas, beliefs and structures that helped shape the nation we inhabit today.

📖 South Africa Unmade — available on Takealot
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What makes authority legitimate? Who gave you the right to rule?

South Africa’s political problems are often discussed in terms of leaders, parties, policies and institutions. But beneath all of these questions lies a deeper one: where does legitimate authority come from, and to whom does it answer?

In this episode of Reasonable Christianity, Roland O’Neil Albertus examines the foundations of authority through South Africa’s history, the development of traditional authority, the rise of constitutional democracy, and the political ideas that have shaped the country.

Then we turn to Scripture.

Through 1 Samuel 8, Romans 13 and Luke 10, we examine what the Bible teaches about human authority, its limits, its purpose and its accountability before God.

This episode introduces the central argument of South Africa Unmade: a nation’s political problems cannot be understood simply by asking who holds power. We must first ask what makes that power legitimate.

And once we ask that question, we discover that authority ultimately answers to someone greater than ourselves.

South Africa Unmade is available in South Africa via Takealot and will be available worldwide from 29 September 2026.

Reasonable Christianity
The Truth matters and so do you.

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