My review of the latest update to Logos 5 came out in Christian Computing Magazine this week. You can read it in PDF format and consider signing up for a free subscription to get my monthly columns.
Next months should cover how to set up a live stream of your worship service using free services and a camera you may already own.
Just a quick quote from the Logos 5 review:
Logos surprised users by dropping version five November 1st. So what’s new in Logos 5. First, a solid edition that hasn’t crashed in the weeks I’ve used it. Also, much better performance gets exhibited in things like the notes editor. There’s no lag. What else is new?
We get a cleaner and more useful user interface. The Logos home page that showed up in version 4 now shows more on a single page. They moved the prayer lists, reading plans and library discovery tool from the top to the left. They also still offer a Home, Library and Search button.
The Sermon Starter Guide sits atop my list of favorite new features in Logos 5. Think of it as the Passage Guide but for preachers. The Sermon Starter Guide helps preachers combine middle steps study and sermon prep into one easy report. I say middle steps because preachers should never use this guide early in the study process. More on that later.
For people who haven’t used Logos before, think of the guides as a digital research assistant. I tell the guide to go look in my library for content related to a passage or a topic. For example, I preached this past week on 2 Timothy 1:8. I did a search on the passage and on the topics of fear, witness, evangelism and power.
Using the Sermon Starter Guide
Find the Sermon Starter Guide under the Guides menu.
Start a Sermon Starter guide report using the Guides menu
Now uses the Sermon Starter Guide to do one of two kinds of supported searches – passage and topic searches. While entering a passage might help if the preacher doesn’t understand his passage yet, I think the best start comes from entering the passage’s primary topic. Preachers should wait to do this until after they’ve studied the passage using the word study tools and the Exegetical Guide in Logos. Once that’s done, then do a topic or passage search using the Sermon Starter Guide.
For example, I ran a report on 2 Tim. 1:8 below.
The list of included data in a default Sermon Starter Guide shows the following:
Theme – shows themes from the chosen passage
Thematic Outline – an outline of topics related to the above themes with example texts, great for surveying what the Bible says about the topics in a chosen passage
Collections – searches the passage or topic in a predefined collection of works
Media Resources – visual resources related to the passage or topic
Commentaries – commentary entries about the passage
Outlines – outlines from books related to the passage like commentary outlines or Bible handbooks
Parallel Passages – cross references of the passage or topic
Topics – topcis related to the passage with references
Illustrations – sermon illustrations from illustration books
GraceMedia.com – media from the site useful only to those who subscribe
SermonAudio.com – audio sermons about this passage
Sermons.Logos.com – same as previous but text-based from Logos’ sermons database
SermonCentral.com – same as previous but from this site
Customizing Sermon Starter Guide
This guide works great, but not all of these entries work for everyone. That’s why I love that I can create a different set of default data sets using the Add button to include more along with the default. Also an X button shows up at the end of the list items to delete that particular guide data set. Click on the Sermon Guide menu in the upper left corner of the guide window and choose to Edit the content to make your own guide for future use.
From now on, run this edited version instead of the default version to get a sermon guide that helps you.
Good Exegesis by Doing Sermon Starter Guide Last
Before leaving this topic, let me suggest that you not jump on this Sermon Starter Guide at the beginning of your sermon prep. Do the basic exegesis of a passage by studying the words using an Inductive approach and then do word studies. The Exegetical Guide helps in this second step. Then stop and think about the ideas included in the passage and run your sermon guides on those topics first and then on the passage last. This workflow will help you become more biblical and not as tied to third-party tools.
To summarize, here’s how I’d use Logos in my sermon prep in order of steps from first to last.
Find a passage using search tools – search topics first or just enter passage if you already know the reference of a passage you want to preach
Delineate the passage by reading it repeatedly using the Passage Analysis Tool and the Pericope Set to show the first and last verse in passage sections according to editors of the various Bible translations
Use the Text Comparison Tool to read the text over and over in different versions and consult the Passage Analysis Tool again to compare translations
Do language study – some will translate from Greek or Hebrew while others will run Bible Word Studies on important words in the passage and/or using the Exegetical Guide and looking up words in dictionaries using the Power Lookup Tool
Keep notes along the way using a note attached to a reference, not a translation
Using the Sentence Diagram tool under Documents, create a structural diagram of the passage.
Determine the topic or theme of the passage (I’m a Big Idea preacher from the Haddon Robinson school so I like to come up withe the Big Idea at this point)
Search for these topics or themes using the Sermon Starter Guide reaching as much as needed in the various resources returned
Collect media resources for presentation
Come up with the outline of the text and translate that into an interesting contemporary preaching outline
Use info from the Sermon Starter Guide where it fits by doing the four kinds of sermon development (explain ideas, illustrate them, prove them and apply them)
Put it all together and then look over it to determine if the sermon points to the glory of God or instead pushes us to “do better” and fix it if it fits in the latter
I hope this helps you see where the Sermon Starter Guide fits in the sermon prep process.
Logos 5 launched with some exciting new tools and a few updated old ones. I want to share three of them with you.
Bible Facts Tool
Logos reworked some of their tools used to learn about people, places and things with the new Bible Facts Tools. It focuses on giving users some visually rich information about these things as we study our Bibles. Added to them we get events too. The tool pulls its information from many places, like Bible dictionaries, atlases and collections of visual tools.
Here’s how the tool works. Logos describes this as running a “Biblical background check.” I like that. I can just open it from the Tools menu in Logos 5 or as I’m studying a passage I can select a person, place, thing or event and right-click. The menu will often show me those things. Select Jesus and find the Person entry in the right side of the popup menu. Select it and see a ton of content.
The visual tools present tell us about the person with things like family trees or relationship graphs. Places show maps and pictures of the places. Events show up on a Bible Timeline (see below). And students can take these visual tools out to presentation software, like PowerPoint.
Along with the visual tools that the Bible Facts window shows, you get reference tools like searches in the Bible and Hebrew or Greek words translated as your word.
See this demo video below:
Bible Timeline
As I showed in the video above, Logos 5 comes with a new Bible Timeline that shows off the timeline of both Biblical and historical events on a horizontal timeline.
The tool lets users filter based on event, date and it lets users customize the look.
Biblical Sense Lexicon
The Bible Sense Lexicon offers students a quick way to search the Semantic Domains in Bible study to learn the “sense” of a Biblical word. It helps users find words related to your word by meaning. Here’s a brief video demo of the tool. http://youtu.be/Sk-57aGnm8I The quickest way to get at it, as shown above, is through the Reverse Interlinear tool. Open a Bible with a Reverse Interlinear like the ESV and make sure the Bible Sense line shows at the bottom of the interlinear information at the bottom of the Bible window. If not, right-click on the list to the left and check the Bible Sense line, which is at the bottom. Now, highlight a word with a Bible Sense Lexicon entry. Not all words in the Bible show up in the lexicon. My example came from 2 Timothy 1:7, and I looked up the word “testimony”. Click on the link in the Bible Sense line of the Reverse Interlinear to open the lexicon. It shows a few things.
Bible Sense Lexicon
In the image above, notice the dictionary entry followed by two hyperlinks. These will open a Bible Word Study of each word. Below that we see a graph showing where this word shows up in the Bible. Along the right we see how the word relates to other words in that Semantic Domain. Click each of the words to open the Lexicon to that tool.
Logos 5 showed up this week with a refined user interface, some new ways to use what was already present and a few new tricks to make it worth the upgrade. In a word, it’s impressive.
This isn’t my complete review. I’ll do that later at a couple of places. However, let me share a few things I like and some of the new tools I’m not that excited about, but you might like.
What’s New in Logos 5
The new Sermon Starter Guide might help lazy or busy preachers access resources in their library focused on a certain passage. Open it up and type in your passage and watch Logos go find some tools. This is different that the Passage Guide because it offers some study content, but is heavier on preaching content like illustrations, sermon outlines and sermon visuals if you subscribe to the included visuals library which costs an extra $400/year.
Above, notice the ability to take notes about passages preached. (1) I put my sermon title and a note about when and where I preached this passage. (2) The list of items included by default shows things most preachers would like to use when preparing a sermon. (3) Click the Add button to include more in the Sermon Starter Guide.
Some other cool new fathers include the following:
Universal Timeline – shows a timeline of Biblcial and historical events
Topic Guide – searches library for content related to a topic
Searching library or Bible by phrase, clause and theme
Feature parity between Windows and Mac versions
Deeper Faithlife Community integration
Better Proclaim Presentation integration
Most users won’t see but will enjoy the faster and more reliable platform. Logos 4 used a technology that slowed things down, but Logos 5 uses updated coding technology that makes the software run better, faster and more reliably.
How Much is Logos 5?
For a limited time Logos costs 15% less than it will after they end their launch sale. They offer 7 base packages that include the following in the chart below from Logos or at Logos’ website.
For owners of Logos 4 or earlier, there’s a nice discount for upgrades. Contact Logos to see how much you can save over the above prices. Logos also takes into account purchases made since buying a base package. For example, if a user buys the Logos Silver package and then adds a ffew books that come with the Gold edition, they can upgrade to the Gold package for a slightly lower price than others would pay.
Get Logos 5 today. People who already own Logos 4 should not hesitate to get the update. At the very least, users of other Bible software should consider Logos 5 of the huge library and breadth of excellent tools they offer as part of the basic installation.
Users of both Windows and Mac will get a version that runs natively on each platform. Logos doesn’t use WINE or emulation software to make the Windows version run on Mac or vice versa. For the first time, the two platforms seem to enjoy feature parity.
Rick Meyers, the talented programmer behind e-Sword, the free Bible software that found its way into the iPad app store, endured some questioning from Rueben Gomez of Bible Software Review. Under the word “endure” was meant as a friendly jab at brother Gomez.
The interview reveals some exciting things coming for e-Sword HD and I am thankful to Gomez for publishing this Q&A.
Most interesting to me is that Meyers hopes to add the ability to use user-created modules. e-Sword has a huge community of users who have created a vast library of user-created content. Like many, my copy of e-Sword has dozens of user-created modules that I’d like to use on my iPad.
Meyers also indicated that some more scholarly modules will come including Greek and Hebrew texts.
The most interesting exchange between Gomez and Meyers is below:
BSR: Given the fact that e-Sword has traditionally been considered freeware, how did you come to the conclusion that you were going to charge $4.99 for the iPad app? Is this a change in your philosophy as a Bible software developer?
RM: e-Sword is still free, so no change there. Everyone who begged me to create an iPad app said they would pay for it. So I made the large investment in development costs to create the app, thus I am holding them to their word
I don’t fault Meyers for charging. He’s given me so much by creating e-Sword, which I used exclusively for many years before God blessed me with my position at Christian Computing Magazine that gives me a chance to play with the best Bible Software on the market for nothing. I’m happy to fork over $5 for an excellent app and hope it grows in the number of excellent books available.
Laridian makes one of the best iPad apps for Digital Bible Study and now offers an option to export personally created information like notes, bookmarks and highlights. They announced the new feature on their company blog this week.
Laridian billed this as a way to create a book and then import it back into the program using Laridian’s book builder software, which went on sale for only $20, $10 less than the previous price. A premium version that lets users make books that can be resold costs just $50, down from $100.
So how do I get my content out of PocketBible. First, sync with the Laridian backup servers from within the app. By the way, this works with their Windows version too. From within the iPad app, go to your Settings page by tapping the last icon on the toolbar and choose Manage My Data. Select Sync My Data with Server.
Next, log into your Laridian account from their main page. The login sits at the top of the page. Then click on the My Data link, also at the top of the page.
From that page, about midway down, users can create one of three book types. Choose the Bible you want to use for verse ordering. This is important since some translations use non-standard verse orders and numbering. Most popular translations use the same one.
Pick a book time to make from the three options – Bookmark Dictionary, Note Commentary or Highlight Dictionary. The first and third can be added to PocketBible as dictionaries and the second as a commentary.
