tave care

Quotes from Apologetics:  class members, interruptions, and the ever erudite Dr Brian Toews

Feel free to comment & add.  I forget the context of some of these.  Sorry.

"The Bible is a really bizarre book.  Theology smoothes it out."

Toews.

"He's a Christian.  Oops."

(On the pastor who threatened to have a Quran bonfire)

Toews.

"[Salvation is] not a sort of magic ticket."

Toews.

"Post-modernism is dead.  Did you all know that?"

Toews.

"Remember 1 Samuel 4?  The Ark of the Covenant was like Israel's lucky charm.  Right?  They're magically delicious."

Toews.

"[The ontological argument says,] 'It's such a good idea, it has to be true.'"

Toews.

"Pick up a map.  There's Jerusalem.  Done."

(On the classical method of apologetics)

Toews.

"Kierkegaard.  He's one of those tricky fellows.  Like a nineteenth century Socrates."

(Pronounced "soccer-tees")

Toews.

Toews: "Amanuensis.  Anyone know what that means?"

Brieanne: "God with us... writing?"

Girl in class: "I'd say she's worth a chance."

(On George Eliot's hypothetical salvation)

Me (under my breath): "I sure as heck hope so!"

"The Hebrew text wins."

(On the topic of canonicity of Scripture and concept of vorlage)

Toews.

"Once they make a movie of it, it's over.  Like... Power Rangers."

(On Dan Brown's DaVinci Code, etc)

Toews.

"...Probably no one wants to follow up on that."

Toews.

"The scrolls have little... cubbies.  Is that what they're called?  ...That's probably not the technical term for it."

Toews.

"The idea of human flawedness... Flawedness.  I really like that word, flawedness."

(On authorship of the Bible)

Toews.

"Jesus, You're asking all the right questions."

Brieanne.

"Would He have been reading His scroll like, 'Hey! I'm that guy.  That's me.'"

(On whether or not Jesus always knew He was Messiah)

Toews, tapping the Bible, looking slightly confused.

"Excuse me, iTunes needs your attention."

Someone's laptop/phone.

"This is going to go kind of fast so just stop me and say, 'Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, I'm lost.'"

Toews.

"This is sort of your plain-Jane Bible with marginal notes."

Toews.

"Even Peter doesn't understand Paul!"

Toews.

Toews: "Did I say 5?"

Brieanne (whispered): "You said 4."

"That's after 300 years!  Our country hasn't even been old that long!"

(On the Nicene Creed, ~4th century AD)

Toews.

"Variants among manuscripts are like... static."

Toews.

"I like that metaphor.  It helps me out."

(On the above quote "static")

Toews.

"I'm going to dig this one out from way back, so it's like... cobwebs."

Toews.

"It's Jude... I've said that three times in a row."

Toews.

"It'd be like quoting Paul and then quoting... Rick Warren.  Or citing Luther and using his view to interpret the text."

Toews.

"Dr Toews and Dr Krewson agree with Kevin!"

(Written)

Kevin Trivits.

"I think something huge is going to be found is Israel that's going to make the Dead Sea Scrolls look like child's play."

Toews.

"When was that, in '48?  We're about due for another monumental discovery!  Some guy's gonna walk down the street, fall into a hole... you know?"

Toews.

"There's a whole chronicle written by Isaiah about the reign of Uzziah out there somewhere, but in the book of Isaiah there's... a half verse."

Toews.

"Christianity is just...absolute...genius."

Toews.

"It was so bold and brilliant of God to just unleash the Word on the world for translation and interpretation."

Toews.

"This is a bunch of stuff... we'll talk about...."

(Flipping through the powerpoint really fast)

Toews.

"This is a word that says, 'but'."

(Funnier out of context... he was pointing to a word in a Greek manuscript)

Toews.

"You all know the map, I'm just really butchering it."

Toews.

Toews: "Also, there were several translations into the Gothic, which I had a chance to work with when I was in Germany."

Kevin: "*Siigghhhhh* You're so cool."

"'Wait wait wait... Spirit? Don't you mean the Holy Spirit?' (answering himself) "Hey man, stop pestering me - give me a break."

Toews.

"A scribe is like making a study Bible - inserting notes like we do in our Bibles, copied by the next scribe."

Toews.

"Jesus exegetes God."

Toews.

"Anybody know what I'm talking about?  Anyone read it?  ...It's in my office.  I should probably read it."

(On a book about the scientific evidence for the afterlife)

Toews.

"There's really nothing like the Bible.  A genre unto itself."

Toews.

"If anything, Christianity is not escapist.  Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered.  He walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death.  He asked His disciples to take up their crosses after Him."

Toews.

"The miracles of Jesus are little pictures of this world restored."

(On Jesus healing the blind, lame... raising the dead to life)

Toews.

"Tell her we didn't turn hers in."

Kevin Trivits... to Bethany & Brieanne (skippers).

"Can you all see that?  It's shades of blue."

Toews.

"I remember one time I sat down and thought I'd go through all the alternate readings of the New Testament.  By the time I was done, I was so bored I couldn't believe it."

Toews.

"For Ehrman, I think it's more like a half glass empty.  And us, a half glass full."

Toews.

"As people of the Book, if you mess this up, it changes everything."

Toews.

"It is with care the Jews and Christians took in preserving their Scripture.  This is the center of everything we are."

Toews.

"The only Jesus, salvation, and gospel you know is that that comes from Scripture."

Toews.

"A Wordless Christian is a Christless Christian."

Toews.

"The word of God is not bound to the original document.  It's the words!  It is not bound and shackled by the material on which it is written.  And the words themselves are not bound by language... the words themselves can be unleashed by translation."

Toews.

"I speak Greek, you speak Latin... oh well.  No!  With the spread of the Gospel, the Word was translated into Syriac, Aramaic, Latin... and away we go!"

Toews.

"That's not a translation.  The Message.  That's... something else."

Toews.

"The Incarnation is our best example of a translation.  God is not man, but God translated Himself into a man.  Jesus is the translation of God into the human realm."

Toews.

"Some scribe coughed and lost it... fell asleep, a little drool came out... water and manuscripts just don't mix!"

Toews.

"God did this for this purpose to validate this message to you."

(On the use of miracles in the Old and New Testaments by prophets)

Toews. 

"Some Money Acts Circle Kevin."

(Written)

Kevin Trivits. 

"You can be a Christian and be upset at religion, right?  That was Martin Luther's whole deal."

Toews.

"It's sort of like preaching to the choir, isn't it?  Come, let's have a class where we read all the books that agree with our beliefs... that's not what we're about.  Here, we are face-to-face with unbelief, in a safe place where we can have our questions asked and answered."

Toews.

"This is an opportunity to own it now."

(On senior year)

Brieanne.

"The trial of our faith ends up strengthening our faith.  It makes it stronger... and it's my thought that after this class, we won't be surprised by anything."

Toews.

"That's the tenth thing I've dropped today."

Toews.

"We care about it and the atheists care about it.  Everyone in between just picks and chooses."

Toews.

"There's nothing like an angry fundamentalist.  Just turns off everybody.  You're not like that."

Toews.

"I have my personal opinions about powerpoints... powerpoints are boring."

Toews.

"I like paper. (Whispered) Write that down."

Brieanne.

"As soon as we get to one topic, it's like BLIP! off to the next one.  It's like Russian roulette, we'll finally get something into your head."

Toews.

"Smack the midget's __________."

Anna/Brieanne.

"Make an S.  Make another S.  That spells SS."

Anna/Brieanne.

"Yes, I've got the answers to miracles!  They're right here, on this sheet of paper."

Toews.

"I'm not even trying to please you.  That's not my job.  My job is education.  And Jesus was educated through suffering, right?  But, no - that's not my educational philosophy!  Just hopefully something will tickle your pleasure center."

Toews.

"Oh!  Very good!  Watch Instantly!  Love that!"

(On Netflix)

Toews.

Anna: "Did she say Twilight?"

Brieanne: "...Of Atheism."

"You now have evangelicals in all the right places, to borrow from a song I don't even know."

(On anti-intellectualism... kind of)

Toews.

"Thank God for Hitchens, then, if the Church can look itself in the face and say we've got a lot of ugly warts.  Let's become more like Christ."

Toews.

"The Church's theology has grown because it's under attack.  It has been forced to go back to Scripture and work through this."

Toews.

"The charismatic movement has grown... it came out of LA.  Of all places."

Toews.

"That's a long time... Oooooh lacy!"

Bethany.

"Oh!  Notes of Quotes!  That's a good one!"

Anna.

"I really just want to order a pizza and have it delivered here."

Mike.

"Like there's a lot of cooler talk... except there is no cooler anymore.  Right?  It's sort of "I love Lucy"-ish."

Toews.

"What I put up here is.... ahhhhhhhh... nothing."

Toews.

"If you hear that phrase in an article or from the pulpit, perk up your ears, because the next thing they say is going to be really important."

(On Jesus of History versus Christ of the Faith)

Toews.

"Thank you.  Yeah, we're done with powerpoint.  Who needs powerpoint.  Let's all sit on the floor and act all emotional."

(When he was pointing at something on the screen when the screen turned off... still pointing at the screen)

Toews.

"Well, I'm going to do what you said not to do.  This is a footnote.  So if you're reading my lecture here, this would appear down at the bottom."

Toews.

"This is spiritually unproductive.  It is a hypothetical, conjectural reconstruction of the historical source of the Gospels."

(On the Jesus Seminar)

Toews.

"There's probably more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than that George Washington ever lived."

"...Yeah, that was probably hyperbole."

"...I wish I had this at my fingertips.  What I meant by that George Washington quip was that there are so many historical events that people take at face value."

Toews.

"It's not just skepticism, it's cynicism.  It's not doubt, it's suspicion.  It's just seen as a power play."

Toews.

"The burden of proof is upon us."

Toews.

"We have our content, but we don't see Jesus, He's in heaven.  But the container of our faith is seen throughout Scripture, Church history, and the impact of the Resurrection."

Toews.

"If you're trying to make a power play, if you're trying to create a Jesus that resonates with the Jews, you wouldn't use women!"

(On women being the first witnesses to the Resurrection)

Toews.

"It's too late to do 2000 years later to do what the Jesus Seminar is doing."

Toews.

"The most plausible explanation for why you and I are here today is that there was an empty tomb.  Affecting not only the Apostles, but the subsequent generations."

Toews.

"Christianity is inexplicable without a Resurrection."

Toews.

"There were Jews teaching Jesus as God in the Gospels.  What would have caused them to have such a radical development in their concept of God?"

Toews.

"Jesus is the New Man fit for the new World at the End of the Age.  This is so dissimilar to Jewish understanding.  Where would they have gotten this idea?  Same idea of having Jesus as divine.  If you're going to do this, you might as well make it something the Jews will accept!  You're making it harder on yourself!"

Toews.

"If nothing happened, this is a whole bunch of hookyhah."

Toews.

"They're either liars, crazy people, or it actually happened."

(On the disciples, a la Josh McDowell)

Toews.

"A dead Messiah is no good to anybody."

Toews.

"It's almost a greater miracle that these guys fabricated this whole thing unnecessarily.  To what end?"

Toews.

"Have a great weekend!  I hope all of your dreams come true."

Toews. 

"Don't follow the 'ism'.  Good rule of thumb."

Brie & Anna.

"Ohhhh... because Athens is the capital of logic."

Brieanne.

"Descartes is 'I think therefore I am'; Kant is 'let's just figure out what we're doing here.'"

Anna.

"STICK TO THE ACRONYM!  Acronyms are the key!"

Anna.

For the causes & features of the Enlightenment:

At-Risk Rangers Still Play Risk

(Aquinas/Aristotle, Renaissance, Reformation, Science, Philosophy, Religious Wars)

Apples Rest Under Peach Stores, Ever Popular

(Autonomy, Reason, Universal, Progress, Secular, Economics, Popular Government)

"Caesar might say that he is Lord and Savior, but I have to say something different, it is the guy who died on the cross who is."

Toews.  (Thanks, Mike!)

"If you ever get lost in theology, just go to Jesus. He will solve all your problems."

Toews.  (Thanks, Bethany!)

"No one should say the word 'Christmas' before Thanksgiving."

Toews.

"I think the beauty of the Christian life is that it's Incarnational."

Toews.

"This might be kind of a bold statement, but I think it's mostly true: we have to earn the right to speak.  It's a life of integrity over the long haul that gives you a platform to speak as a Christian about things that matter."

Toews.

"I just don't think he'd want to be ugly when sharing the beauty of the Gospel.  Or hateful when sharing the love of Christ."

Toews.

"If there is one thing I recommend that you preserve in your public, private, spiritual lives is your integrity.  It only takes one mistake to ruin that.  The value of a good name, the Bible talks a whole lot about that.  It doesn't take a whole lot to destroy that reputation.  We are the living embodiment of the Gospel in our lives."

Toews.

"I know when I'm under pressure... because... I starts to stutter."

Toews.

"I don't know how much there is to argue with... these are all biblical words: integrity, love... haha."

Toews.

Toews: "I don't know this word: apiarist."

Anna: "It's like a beekeeper."

Toews: "Oh!  Well done!  Go to the head of the class!"

(I don't move)

Toews: "No?"

Anna: "No, I'm good."

Toews: "Very good."

"That's not an 'i'... that's nothing."

(Misspelled "religious" on the board)

Toews.

"That sort of relates to the question you're asking.  Well, I should hope it relates or I wouldn't have brought it up."

Toews.

Toews: "Any Bonhoeffer fans?"

Sarah S: "Yes!"

Toews: "Ah!  She speaks!"

"In a sort of backhanded way, I can thank God for a book like Hitchens'."

Toews.

"You really know you've made a deal when you have Nazi flags in your church."

(On Protestant churches in Nazi Germany)

Toews.

"The church has got itself into problems when it has allied itself with state power.  I don't think most pastors think twice about it, but maybe they should think twice about it.  If there's one sort of Achilles' heel with the Church, it is seduced by the thought of political power."

Toews.

"There's going to be a time when your knowledge of the Bible is really going to matter.  For Bonhoeffer, it really mattered."

Toews. 

"I finished my eportfolio, I filled out my acceptance letter to the School of Ed...."

Bethany Peace.

"So it's like... surprise!"

(On Psalm 77:16-20)

Toews.

"There's some pretty interesting stuff in the Bible."

Toews.

"It's pretty packed!  We've got the sun, we've got birds, the moon... the sky is pretty packed!"

Toews.

"And these are the stars in the udder of the cow."

Toews.

"It's not crazy, it's really sort of ordinary."

(On the narrative of Creation)

Toews.

"You're probably going to be really confused after tonight.  It's not my intention to confuse you.  It's my intention to show you how many decisions you have to make about the Genesis Creation account.  It's a wild ride."

Toews.

"I assume you're all conservative evangelicals, and you have no problem living in a heliocentric system."

Toews.

"Don't talk to me about hours and minutes!  It's poetry, man!  Work on the other side of your brain a little bit!"

Toews.

"Ok!  Stop!  Genre mistake!"

Toews.

"Based upon the text of the Bible, what in the world is going on?"

Toews.

"You all read books, right?  ..."

Toews.

"I think the real interesting stuff is all the questions I have."

Toews.

"At one point, there was nothing.  Whatever that word means."

Toews.

"It's the standpoint of just your average Joe person looking out at the world."

"Joe Human standing on the world looking around."

Toews.

Student singing in the hallway: "Ohh heaven is a place on earth! You make heaven a place on earth!"

Toews: "No, we don't have classes at night at PBU.  Never happens.  NEVER HAPPENS!  ...Anyway, so..."

"McCory (?), Weinberg, sounds the same."

Toews.

"If you give ground in regards to Adam, you're going to give ground to the Second Adam, and His death, burial and resurrection."

Toews.

"Bruce Waltke is like the Godfather of Old Testament theology."

Toews.

"The book of nature and the book of Scripture are not necessarily in conflict."

Toews.

"I would never want to have coffee or sit down to talk with these folks... they kind of scare me!"

(On the Answers in Genesis people)

Toews.

"It has the feel of Sunday schoolish."

(On Answers in Genesis)

Toews.

Toews: "If there's one thing that's important in the Pentateuch, it's the land the land the land the land."

Brieanne: "I love Toews."

"They took one of those age machines..."

Victor.

"You might be right, and that'd be great!"

Toews.

"'By Jesus Christ, God created the Promised Land.'  In one fell swoop, I'm true to Paul and I'm true to Moses, and the issue of origins is out the window."

Toews.

"Slow down, Kevin!"

Toews.

"So God is really like a host, welcoming a person into His home.  ...Here's an easy chair, this is for you!  These utensils are for cutting the fish or whatever."

Toews.

"Man's not meant to live on anything but the land.  You've seen Waterworld?  Don't watch it, it's the worst movie ever."Toews.

"What a great host!  What a joy to be living in God's world!  He's awesome!"

Toews.

"So much of what God does is piece by piece."

(On the meaningfulness of the number of days throughout Scripture... 40, 10, 3, 7, etc as the pattern of God's work)

Toews.

Toews: "Why couldn't Jesus just die and then stand up?"

Brieanne: "Surprise!"

Toews: "I mean... did it take Him that long?"

"My personal reading of the Pentateuch says that there is no other way to read 7 days than 7 days."

Toews. 

"This is the book, my little show and tell."

(The Lost World of Genesis One, John Walton)

Toews.

"Always read the fine print... aha, just kidding.  But on the other hand, always read the fine print."

(Explaining the syllabus)

Toews.

"I'll probably be a zombie.  It'll all turn out backwards."

Toews.

"My assistant will put those up online and will put them in your boxes tomorrow, so... you'll have them for the weekend!"

Toews.

"A love song is a love song is a love song."

Toews.

"It's a game changer."

Toews.

"Adam is huge.  You can avoid a lot of issues here, but you can't avoid those passages.  He's there right along with David and Solomon and Jesus... Individual persons that are part of the history of our world."

Toews.

"I think that's the dilemma.  I think that's the right word to use here."

Toews.

Toews: "I might feel a little uneasy... waiting till Hebrews to find out about that, but then again, we had to wait till Revelation to find out the serpent is the Devil. "

Brieanne: "That's so tricky."

"This reads like Greek mythology... and the god's blood is ripped open and there's his blood and the other gods took the blood and formed humans out of it.  And we're just like... what?"

Toews.

"It would not surprise me if this were of a different kind completely.  Put Genesis 1 into a genre.  But if he makes a genre mistake, he's going to force Genesis 1 into this functional account, which would be a mistake."

Toews.

"If a scholar comes in and changes the interpretation of Leviticus, we're all just like... hmmmmm ok.  It's Leviticus."

Toews.

"Think how uneasy Christians would have been in the Reformation.  One day you have a Catholic priest and the next week he's reading Luther's work and he's a Protestant.  What?  Flip me out man!  And you have the religious wars."

Toews.

"I don't think that's the right approach to try to solve the pressure that we're under because of these issues.  Right?  Now I can go to work and be like, 'Hey, how about those evolutionists?  What great guys!' 'Hey yeah!  Evolution, right on!'"

Toews.

"Even if this solves the evolution issue, we still have a God issue we have to solve.  We still have the same Gospel."

Toews.

"Loren Haarsma must be the Loren Haarsma of the book."

Toews.

"I have to stay within the parameters of my education so... I don't sound like an idiot, right?"

Toews.

"If you go this route, you're going to have other human...ids who died before Genesis 3."

Toews.

"Is it going to take all of these crazy hermeneutic gymnastics to make this fit?  I don't want to make the Bible fit."

Toews.

"Tigris is a real place, Tigris doesn't mean anything, Tigris means Tigris."

Toews.

"All the man and woman had to do was say no to the serpent.  She could take the fruit, slice it, dice it, prepare it anyway she wants... She can make apple pie, just can't eat it."

Toews.

"The Garden is like the Super Bowl.  One event for all time."

Toews.

"I probably should know this, but I don't know what this means."

(Concordist v non-concordist)

Toews.

"Oh! They changed it on me!  That's not right!"

(Looking for a video on the Biologos website)

Toews.

"Look at Dr Hirt's brother."

(Tim Keller on the back of his book)

Brieanne.

"Sometimes old people look like dolls."

Bethany.

"He looks sort of drunk here... to start."

(NT Wright, his face frozen in the video before it was fully loaded)

Toews.

"They're not big, buzzy issues."

NT Wright.

"Maybe fuzzy is the right word for this matter."

Toews.

"I'm going to butcher this, I always think of these things way too late."

Toews.

"Have a nice weekend and I hope all your Thanksgiving dreams come true!"

Toews.

"I feel bad for the Holy Spirit."

Bethany.

"If you've already finished your research paper, it's going to be all blah blah blah for the first 15 minutes."

(45 minutes later.......)

Toews.

"You're not writing a wikipedia article."

Toews.

"Don't worry about me - I'll be ok!  Pick a topic for you!"

Toews.

"If I get kicked out, that'll be annoying.  ...Oh!  Huzzah!"

(Going back to a website that he thought had closed)

Toews.

"The OWL site... O-W-L, at Purdue University."

(Largest air quotes I've ever seen)

Toews.

"Brieanne either looks like a female entrepreneur or a female preacher.  I can't tell which."

Kevin.

"This is the not very glamorous part of reading and research.  You sit in a chair, you do your time.  My advice to you: stay in the chair.  ...But seriously, the work of a researcher is pretty lonely.  I have found it pretty exhilarating.  What can I say?"

Toews.

Toews: "I did a very sort of 'researchette'..."

Brieanne (whispered): "Ah!  So cute!"

"I basically had a paper written in about 10 minutes, just playing around."

Toews.

"Do you google?"

Toews.

"'But Dr Toews, our library doesn't have this book!' Don't worry - it's on Google!  And I always figure I can get enough of the book to do a paper!"

Toews.

"This is Ed Tech.  Toews-style."

Brieanne.

"Peer reviewed scholarship is the way that knowledge goes forward."

Toews.

"That's Stanford, right? It's a pretty good place."

Toews.

(Looking for a book/article online, as the page loads) "Beautiful!  Awesome!  Great!  ERRRRRRRRRrrrrrrr! Ah!  Google books!  Boo bam!  If this were an interesting book, that'd go right on my reference list!"

Toews.

"Just don't plagiarize - that's the worst.  I've been reading your papers all year, I know what you sound like."

Toews.

"Work hard, do your best, sit in a chair."

Toews.

"A 'works consulted' page is like Hansel and Gretel.  The little bread crumbs.  I can see the kinds of articles and books you've consulted.  If you want to give me a 'works consulted' page, that's something for me."

Toews.

"Ah I sound like Carmen Sandiego.  Where do I go?  What next?  Where do I go, right?"

Toews.

(To a student saying she was excited to not be having a 'final class') "None taken!  Oh my goodness!  I hope my skin's a little thicker than that!"

Toews.

"It's kind of like the video store, Be Kind Rewind!  Be kind, turn in your papers before midnight."

Toews.

"Now class can start, and we'll take a break.  I'm already spent."

Toews.

"We always do bad together."

Brieanne.

"Has anyone had a near death experience in class?"

Toews.

"The biblical view of life after death is we are resurrected, we go to the seaside and eat fish with Jesus.  Heaven comes to earth."

Toews.

"Our future life will be one of work.  A sort of Garden-like existence: God put men in the garden to serve Him and work and explore."

Toews.

"My expectation of life after death is that it is earthly and productive."

Toews.

"It's not attractive when an afterlife looks... lame.  For lack of a better term."

Toews.

"We are who we are because we can look inside and go, 'There I am! That's me!' Remember when I was 10? I'm somehow, you know, in there."

Toews.

"It's very satisfying to me that my life here is actually going to continue on in the afterlife - that I'll still have this face, this body, these memories."

Toews.

"He's actually further along than most Christians are."

(On Dennett, author of a chapter in the Portable Atheist)

Toews.

"Yeah, we'll be on the beach, eating fish just like He did.  I don't know about walking through walls... but there will be FOOD in the resurrection."

Toews.

"We are made from the ground, we are bound to the ground, we are stuck to the ground by nature of our creation."

Toews.

"I'm not going to Heaven, Jesus comes here.  And if I die before that, I'm coming back with Him."

Toews.

"That's John 14ish."

Toews.

"If I'm going to use John to interpret John to answer your question, that's what I would say."

Toews.

"There's Paul, he dies.  Six feet under.  There's Jesus."

(Explaining his picture on the board)

Toews.

"Yes, these are stick figures.  It's the total retardation of my skills.  I stopped developing artistically at kindergarten."

Toews.

"His view of prayer is like a vending machine: try and get your Twix, your KitKat, your Snickers.  Snickers is the best, by the way.  Anyway."

Toews.

"Moses goes to the Lord, 'Can I get that? Can I get that? Can I get that? Can I get that?'  God gets mad, 'Knock it off!'  God gets annoyed because Moses keeps asking... and He says no."

Toews.

"Dennett doesn't give an inch."

Toews.

"These are some distressing new death - NEAR death experiences."

Toews.

"Repetition is the mother of teaching, right?"

Toews.

"Oh that's perfect!  Everyone's here tonight!"

Toews.

"This is from a book called Jesus and the Victory of God... it's a big fat book."

Toews.

"No one in their right mind would talk about a resurrected person and call him Messiah."

Toews.

"Replace the word 'Christ' with 'Messiah' and all of the sudden, the New Testament becomes a very Old Testament book.  It comes right out of the Prophets and the promise of redemption for the people!"

Toews.

"Why did anyone attach this word to Jesus in the first place?  Are you crazy?  There's only one guy to designate king of the Jews - and that's Caesar.  ...What do you call that?  Bullets... sort of... target.  You have a target on your back."

Toews.

"First of all, you don't talk about your dead Messiah, but they did.  No one's going to buy into a Messiah that didn't defeat the Romans, isn't seated on David's throne in Jerusalem."

Toews.

"How to kill a ministry: get yourself arrested or talk about something so farcical that no one pays you any mind."

Toews.

"The Disciples are doing everything wrong.  The only way it works is if it's true."

Toews.

"The Cross is a stumbling block to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles.  Go and build your religion off that."

Toews.

"Paul takes his Bible and says, 'I know what you expected, but look here, and look here, and look here and look here.'"

Toews.

"No one got that until the Resurrection.  End of the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus opens their eyes: 'It's here! It's here, it's here, it's here, it's here!' through the Prophets, the Psalms and Moses."

Toews.

"They wouldn't have made all those connections without Jesus standing right there revealing it to them."

Toews.

"The best evidence for life after death is Jesus' Resurrection.  It happened in space and time."

Toews.

"That says 'Creator' - without the i.  And that says 'creation'... pretty much with the i."

(His handwriting on the board... basically illegible.)

Toews.