Goodchild and the Theology of Money

In Philip Goodchild's Introduction to his book, "Theology of Money," he spans many topics: he provides examples of the way the New Testament talks about money, and our relationship with money and how it flirts with our relationship with our religion; he provides an extensive historical background on how money was once used, and he describes the process by which and the resounding effects of money's transition from hard currency in exchange for goods to credit as currency; and he briefly describes his theory on the theological nature of our relationship with money and how that plays into day-to-day life (I say briefly because the whole book is about this [I assume] and this section wasn't exactly brief...).

Since the introduction covered so many different parts of the "Theology of Money," I didn't finish the chapter with one decisive thought on my mind. Instead, I had thoughts and questions on the separate sections of the chapter.

First off, it was interesting that he started the first section with "a parable." The way he described Jesus' teachings was somewhat of a warning, with an overly considerate and delicate tone (at least, compared to the conviction with which he spoke about the topics in the rest of the chapter). He provided and explained the scripture passages in such a way that he was kind of telling the reader something he expected none of them to know, had never heard of, or didn't understand. Though I found it helpful that he "walked" me through the scripture stuff in this way, I was wondering if you guys thought that his explicitness was necessary? Do you think he could've made his point about how Christianity talks about money without being so point-by-point?

Secondly, in the "Bank of England" section, much of the information he provided was historical. He talked extensively, and for good reason, about how our modern world came to depend so heavily on credit as money, and the way that that system shapes our economy and our society. However, a pattern I noticed throughout the whole chapter was that Goodchild spent much time describing the intricate details of a situation, in this case the historical details behind the Bank of England and the system of money that followed and spread, and would then, once he was done explaining it thoroughly, he would sum it up in one, two, or three paragraphs. Do you think the extensiveness to which he went into the topic of the Bank of England was necessary? Could Goodchild have made his point about the Theology of Money without so much detail here, and elsewhere? Why or why not?