with Derek Walmsley, curate at St Mark's

I'm at a disadvantage - I'm writing this before the England v Argentina game and when you read this you'll know if the dream is over.

I was at Wembley in 1991 when England and Argentina last met, and saw Gary Lineker score a great goal with a diving header.

Now he's one of the TV pundits and he seems like a decent bloke - the sort your mum likes even if she doesn't like football.

The money doesn't seem to have spoiled him, even if he eats too many crisps.

Lineker was transferred several times in his career for huge sums of money.

Alan Shearer cost Newcastle £15 million. After the World Cup one player will move for £21 million, and it won't stop there.

As a boy, I remember England winning the World Cup, and afterwards my local team Blackpool sold Alan Ball, one of the players in England's team, for a record £110,000.

It seemed a lot at the time, but transfer fees have kept rising since.

This week the news has also highlighted Yorkshire Water's bosses decision to award themselves large pay rises, provoking strike threats from the workforce.

Can this be fair? Should these directors earn so much? Money is a hot topic.

The Bible is not scared of talking about money.

In fact Jesus talked about it more than many other religious subjects.

Many readers will know his famous saying: 'You cannot serve both God and mammon.' Mammon is usually translated as money in modern bibles, although it actually means wealth in any form - including cattle and houses etc.

But Jesus' point was this: Who or what is your God? What's the most important thing in your life? Is it God? Or money? Or Alan Shearer?

You cannot have two Gods - you'll end up serving one or the other eventually.

Why not put the paper down for a moment right now and consider what is the most important thing in life. Here's a clue: it's not football!

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.