Episode 387: The Economy of Grace - Resources for Mission
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
Release Date: 11/11/2025
Unconditional Love in a World of Retaliation
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
Is retaliation ever justified? In this episode, you explore Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 5:38–42 and what it means to live faithfully in a world shaped by revenge, power, and division. By starting with Jesus as the lens for understanding scripture, the conversation uncovers how interpretations can lead to very different responses to conflict and harm. You are guided through four common approaches to retaliation: unlimited retaliation, limited retaliation, limited love, and the radically different way of unconditional love. Each perspective reveals something about human nature, but only one...
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Episode 397: When We Stop Seeing - The Loss of Our Humanity
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
This episode is part 1 of a 3 part dialogue. We begin with a quiet but dangerous shift happening in our lives and in the world around us: the gradual loss of our ability to truly see one another as human beings. What begins as small, reasonable judgments can slowly turn people into categories, stories into assumptions, and neighbors into abstractions. Through everyday examples and honest reflection, this episode explores how easily fear, certainty, efficiency, and distance can shape the way we perceive others and ourselves. As you well know, this is a podcast centered around faith. So it...
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Episode 398: God with Skin On - Jesus and the Restoration of Sight
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
Part 2 of a 3 part seies In Episode 398, Tim and Sara continue the conversation from Episode 397 by returning to the center of our faith: the incarnation. Christianity does not begin with ideas about God. It begins with God choosing to become human. God puts “skin on” and comes close, not as an abstract concept, but as presence. Vulnerable. Woundable. Near. This episode explores how the incarnation restores our sight. If we want to learn how to see one another again, we look at how God chose to see us, not from a distance or above, but from within human life. Jesus meets people in real...
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Episode 399: Learning to See Again - Love as a Way of Life
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
Part 3 of a 3 part series. Episode 399: Learning to See Again – Love as a Way of Life In the final episode of this three-part series, Tim and Sara turn toward a simple but demanding invitation: to learn how to see again and to live love as a way of life. Building on the previous conversations about losing our ability to see one another as human and returning to the heart of the faith in the incarnation, this episode asks what it looks like to practice seeing every day, especially when it is difficult, uncomfortable, or costly. This conversation names love not as a feeling, but as a...
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Podcast Update
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
The next three episodes will come your way on February 10th. You'll have the opportunity to listen to a larger conversation in those three episodes we'll be back with episode 400 to start the Lenten journey with a podcast on February 24th. So today we have a setup for our next three episodes. So here's why we're dropping all three episodes at once. You might call it a little mini series. One of the quiet dangers of our time is not simply fear, but how easily fear is reshaping people's vision. What we're seeing in the world is that people become categories, lives become labels, humanity gets...
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Episode 396: Discernment as a Way of Discipleship
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
This week, explore what it means to live and lead with truth that can be trusted. In a culture shaped by reaction, urgency, and “truth-ish” sound bites, they reflect on discernment as a spiritual practice rooted in relationship with Jesus, not impulse or opinion. This conversation invites leaders and congregations to recover holy pause, reflect deeply, and live up to the name Christian by embodying truth with integrity, humility, and grace.
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Episode 395: A Holy Tension
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
In this episode of Transforming Mission's podcast, Tim and Sara explore what it means to live faithfully in the tension between what is and what can be. In a polarized, fast-paced world that trains us to react, they reflect on Scripture, identity, and presence as essential practices for Christ-centered discipleship. Drawing from Hebrews 11 and Romans 8, this conversation invites listeners to consider how hope is formed not by escaping discomfort, but by remaining grounded in Jesus, cultivating trust, and practicing faithful presence with one another.
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Episode 394: Truth That Holds Us
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
In a time when opinions are loud and certainty comes quickly, Episode 394 of the Transforming Mission Podcast offers a quieter and deeper invitation. This conversation explores what it means to trust truth not as information to defend, but as a relationship rooted in Jesus, who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If you are longing for discernment, grace, and a more faithful way to engage difficult conversations, this episode creates space to slow down, listen, and reflect.
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Episode 393: The Teacher is Here
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
As we close our Advent series, we turn to Joseph in Matthew 1:18–25, a quiet figure whose actions teach us about faithful leadership. Joseph does not speak, yet his choices reveal a deep, lived righteousness. When Joseph learns of Mary’s pregnancy, he chooses mercy before he has answers. He plans to protect her from humiliation, showing us that righteousness is not rigid rule keeping, but compassion in action. Only later does the angel appear, speaking words leaders often need to hear, “Do not be afraid.” Joseph’s fear is not dismissed, but he is invited to trust that God is at work...
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Episode 392 - Here Comes the Teacher - Pay Attention
Transforming Mission Podcast with Tim Bias & Sara Thomas
In Episode 392 of the Transforming Mission Podcast, we continue our Advent series *Here Comes the Teacher* by turning our attention to Matthew 11:2–11 and the honest questions of John the Baptist. From a prison cell, John asks the question many faithful people wrestle with: *Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?* Jesus responds not with explanations, but by pointing to what is already happening, healing, restoration, mercy, and good news for the poor. In this episode, Tim and Sara explore what it means to pay attention when God does not meet our expectations, why...
info_outlineEpisode 387: The Economy of Grace
In this episode, Tim and Sara unpack one of Jesus’ most practical and challenging teachings from Matthew 6:19–24. Through this passage, they explore what it means to live within God’s economy of grace: a way of life where grace, not greed, defines our values, vision, and priorities.
They begin with Jesus’ reminder that “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” inviting listeners to consider what truly captures their attention and shapes their lives. Together, they discuss how generosity, focus, and trust reveal where our hearts reside and how our vision determines our path. From the dangers of divided loyalty to the freedom of serving one master, the conversation highlights the difference between accumulation and participation, between chasing what fades and investing in what lasts.
Drawing from Wesleyan wisdom, they remind us that grace refocuses our hearts, clears our vision, and calls us to steward not just our money but our time, attention, and relationships as gifts of God’s love. This episode ends with practical reflections and an invitation: What’s capturing your attention? Who, or what, is shaping your choices? Listen in as Tim and Sara help you discover how living in God’s economy transforms ordinary stewardship into an expression of grace.
Find show notes, reflection questions, and a small group discussion guide at transformingmission.org/387