The Grip of Money: Why Money and Work Still Master Christians

Most Christians don't make faith-based decisions. They make finance-based ones.

We know we should be generous. We've heard the sermons. But knowing the rules hasn't loosened money's grip - and for most of us, it hasn't changed the way we work either.

The Grip of Money takes on the two forces that shape most lives more than we admit: money and work. Written by a pastor with a background in economics and financial services, it offers no budgeting system and no prosperity gospel. It offers something harder and more useful - a framework for understanding why money and work still own you, and what it looks like to live differently.

James Kim writes as someone who has made the mistakes, planted a church without a salary for six years, and learned what it costs to put money in its proper place. He walks readers through the foundations most personal finance books ignore.

Part one lays the theological foundation: who money really serves, what God's economy looks like, and why the master you choose determines everything. Part two tackles work - its meaning, its temptations, and its rightful place in a life oriented toward God. Part three moves into the practical: spending, debt, housing, investing, and giving - not as isolated topics but as an integrated whole.

This is a book for Christians who are tired of feeling guilty about money without knowing what to do about it. It's for those who sense that the way they work and spend is shaped more by the world than by their faith - and who want that to change. And it's for those meeting these questions for the first time - young adults stepping into financial life, and anyone who wishes they'd been handed this framework earlier.

The Grip of Money is the first book in The Grip Series, a collection exploring the forces that quietly govern Christian life.