Logos Sermon Prep Part Five: Taking Notes for Observations and Questions

Logos Bible Software helps preachers and teachers prepare their messages thanks to some useful Logos sermon prep tools, but the Notes feature gets more use than any other feature besides offering a library of Bibles, books and reference books. I use Notes extensively for the following:

• Recording my thoughts about a text.
• Keeping rack of ideas for how to preach a passage.
• Record things learned in research of a text.
• Write down questions I need to research.

I use a process called Inductive Bible Study in my Logos sermon prep, where the student reads the text and thinks about the context of the passage before every consulting third-party tools like lexicons, Bible dictionaries, atlases, concordances and commentaries. Those tools help me check my conclusions, find information I couldn't get from my simple observations and learn about things like cultural backgrounds, geography, and language studies.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzyYMcxTIzc&feature=youtu.be

Taking Notes in Logos Sermon Prep

Bible software notes attach text and more to a specific word, phrase, verse or passage.  Some programs will also let you record them as topics unattached to anything in a book. In Logos, you can also add notes to other kinds of books and even to tools, like a Passage Guide generated for a passage of Scripture.I attach notes to the passage I'm studying, a range of verses or a single verse. I almost never attach them to a single word in a verse, but you can if you like.Logos lets users create a new Note document for each message or keep on document for all notes attached to a book or the Bible. If I were starting over today, I'd attach one note to each book of the Bible. Instead I have a large notes document called Bible Notes and record all of my notes in that document. I create other documents for other books I read.

Creating and Using the Notes Document in Logos

To get started, create a new note document, if you don't already have one you want to use. Open Logos and then click on Documents from the toolbar. Then in the window that pops open click on Notes. A new window opens with the new notes document in it. It has the title "Untitled Notes". Click that name in the new document and it turns into an editable text box. Give it a name like Sermon Notes or Ezekiel Notes. I call mine Bible Notes.The ensuing Notes Document will look like a simple word processor. It has the same control box in the upper left corner that all Logos windows show. Click it to see the menu that pops up. Users can sort their notes using different things like name, reference, and date to name a few. This also lets users print their notes or export the note as a passage list or sermon document.

Purpose of Making Observations

After I read and re-read my passage, I take notes on the passage using nothing but the English text at first. I do my language study at a later date. This has a few benefits.

• My first thoughts are not clouded by the views of another researcher.
• This lets me think through the text for myself with the Holy Spirit's inspiration only at first.
• I am going through my passage again, which helps me to internalize the message of the text.

What kinds of observations do I make? I record thoughts and ideas about almost every word in a verse. Let's take John 3:16 as an example.

John 3:16, CSBFor God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."For" connects this verse with the previous passage. This tells us why Jesus was "lifted up" (John 3:15).God is the one who actively showed us his love in the work he did in giving us his son.The term "loves" shows this is an ongoing, active love. Is this present tense and from agape?God's love is directed not just at his people or Christians, but the entire world. The world refers to all of humanity making his love universal even if salvation isn't universal.How does he show that love? "In this way" denotes the means of his demonstration is presented in the ensuing phrases.

The above observations only cover the first part of the verse. I will go over the entire verse putting a note for nearly every word and definitely every phrase.The underlined part of the observations shows a question that I will need to find an answer by doing a word study of the word "loved". It's a good idea to mark the questions so you can easily find them in your research phase. When I do the research, I will add the answer either replacing the question with the answer or putting the answer right after the question and then removing the marking (underlining in this case).Finish this step by going through every word or phrase in your passage. I also add a note to the entire passage by selecting the range of verses and choosing adding a single note to all the verses using the steps below. In that passage note I will write about the context of the passage showing how it fits in the chapter, the book and the entirety of the Bible. I'll also give a brief outline fo the passage showing the flow of thought. Later I'll come back to this note and record my passage Big Idea.

Working  with Notes Documents in Logos

When you discover something you want to record in a note, create a new note for that verse, word or passage. You can do this by selecting it and right-clicking it. Then choose either the "selection" or the passage in the right-hand column of the pop-up. Use selection (the top item in the list), which shows the text of the words you selected, if you want to add notes to those words or a word and not to a passage. The note will attach to that translation of the Bible only. For example, I've got the Christian Standard Bible open above. If I open the same passage in the KJV, that note won't show up because it's attached the note to the words I selected in the CSB and note the verse reference.To add the note to a verse reference that will show up in any translation that includes that verse, choose the reference. It will attach the note to say John 3:16 instead of that translation of John 3:16. That way when I close CSB or open KJV the note will still show up.After you pick between selection or the passage, click on Add note, Add note to "Bible Notes" or Add community note.

• Add note - this is a new feature that relates to the new Notes features that Faithlife is adding to Logos. These notes will show up in the desktop, the mobile apps and the Logos Web app. Logos is in transition and the new notes feature will become the default soon. Some users might not see this yet in their installation of Logos. You can convert your old notes to the new version when it ships in the final form. For now, I'd avoid this I you don't use the web app.
• Add note to "Bible Notes" - you will add your note to the Notes Document you created above. Its title will show up instead of "Bible Notes". If your preferred Notes Document doesn't show up in the pop-up, then open the Notes Document first from the Document's menu.
• Add community note - Community Notes are public to all people who use them. You can turn these off or on from the Visual Filters toolbar button in the Bible's window. It looks like three dots arranged in a triangular shape (see below).

I add all my notes to my "Bible Notes" document and will convert them later when the new notes feature gets launched. I'll write a full review and how to article about the new notes feature when it ships, so keep an eye out here.

Other Ways to Record Thoughts and Research

In addition to a Notes Document, users can record research or thoughts using other kinds of documents in Logos. I don't use these features as much, but other users swear by them and use them more than notes. They include...

• Clippings - select text from a commentary, dictionary or other reference tool while studying your passage and shave it to a Clippings Document. Think of this like note cards that you used to use while researching a paper in college or seminary. Clippings helps copy a bunch of snippets of information from other books. At this phase we're focused on the Bible text only, so it's not the best tool for the Observations phase of inductive Bible study.
• Passage List - keep a list of key passages. You might use this to keep cross references from a search performed on a word in your passage.
• Sermon - write your sermon within Logos and then export it or preach from the document in the mobile version of Logos. You can also convert a Notes Document into a Sermon Document.
• Word List - Like a Passage List, but for Greek or Hebrew words instead of passages. Make a list of every theological term in a passage to help you know what word studies you need to do after you've finished taking notes on the English text.

Logos Sermon Prep Part Four: Text Comparison Tool in Inductive Bible Study

The next step on Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep helps us actually learn what the passage we've selected means by reading it repeatedly using the Text Comparison Tool. We're talking about Inductive Bible Study.

What is Inductive Bible Study?

The phrase Inductive Bible Study refers to studying the Bible hoping to discover the meaning of the text without any prejudices or preconceived notions brought to the task. Seminary students will remember studying the terms eisogesis and exegesis. We call Inductive Bible study exegesis in scholarly circles. It means studying the text and discovering the meaning based on the words, concepts, setting, writer's intent, audience and context. Eisogesis is the opposite. If a student fails to let the word speak for itself, then they might read into the text what's not really there.A lot of heresy comes from eisogesis or reading into the text what's not there. We take verses out of context or don't study them based on the original author's intent, context, setting or the meanings of terms used that we might misunderstand in our time.Inductive Bible Study leads me to discover what God's saying to me and my audience. That's why it's the best approach to Bible study for Logos Bible Software sermon prep.

Theotek Podcast

https://youtu.be/Jx-PYaR_y0o

Steps of Inductive Bible Study in Logos Sermon Prep

You can do Inductive Bible Study using physical books and a notepad or you can use any competent Bible software. Logos Bible Software helps us study the bible inductively thanks to a number of tools. This part focuses on the Text Comparison Tool. The full list of Inductive Bible Study steps include the following:

• Reading the text repeatedly
• Observing what's in the text without any other tools at first
• Ask good interpretive questions
• Diagram the sentence in Greek, Hebrew or English to see the structure of the author's thoughts
• Find answers to questions and check the accuracy of our observations using the tools in Logos Bible Software
• Discover the Big Idea of the text

We started the process with selecting a text covered in three steps (first, second and third steps). Now, it's time to read it repeatedly and we'll show you how using Logos.

Read the Text Repeatedly

We're going to work with Ephesians 1:3-14 as our text. I'm teaching through the passage during my Wednesday night Bible study at church. We already talked about multiple tools and ways to choose the text, so for this step, we'll assume that's a good text to choose, especially since it's one long sentence in Greek.Start by opening your favorite translation and prayerfully read though it in your favorite translation. I say "prayerfully" because you should begin by asking the Holy Spirit to guide your study.You should probably also read the text in context.

• Read the entire chapter.
• Read the whole book if it's not too long - Paul's letters, the Pastoral Epistles, shorter prophetic books.
• Read sections in longer books like the chapters before and after at least.

Use Multiple Translations

Read the passage itself in a few translations. I always use ...

• Christian Standard Bible - This is my favorite translation. Below I'll explain the value of various translations. I like the CSB because translators targeted a readable translations that's as close to word-for-word without sounding too wooden.
• English Standard Version - A slightly more literal translation that is also very readable.
• King James Version - The standard that most people grew up with in my church and is often the most recognizable translation for popular passages. It's more literal.
• New American Standard Bible - A very literal and highly accurate modern translation. I prefer the 1995 update.
• New International Version - Not a paraphrase, but the translators focused more on readability than literal translation. I prefer the 1984 version.
• New Living Translation - The old Living Bible was a paraphrase, but they updated it in the 1990s and went for more of a translation. However, it is the least literal of these translations with a thought-for-thought approach.

The Range of Translations from Literal to Readable

If you think of translations or paraphrases as sitting on a spectrum, then put the original Greek or Hebrew text to the left of the range. Translation that sit closer to the Greek or Hebrew text show up on the left. We call these "word-for-word" translation. Above, I mentioned that I use the KJV and the NASB in my reading to get this more literal look at the text in English.On the opposite end of the spectrum you find the paraphrases, like the Living Bible, the Good News Bible, The Message or the Amplified Bible. We call these "thought for thought" translations. We use these translations almost like commentaries. They helps us get an idea of what the passage means, even though they don't show us the word-for-word translation of the text.Most modern translations sit closer to the middle of the spectrum between literal and non-literal. Translators like to use the word dynamic or dynamic equivalent. That's a marketing term that makes the ESV, the NIV, and the CSB sound like they're equivalent. They're not as literal as the KJV or NASB, but not as interpretive as a paraphrase like the Living Bible or The Message. See this spectrum for many translations in the image below.The Eccentric Fundamentalist offered this nice graphic, which illustrates where the various translations sit on the spectrum. I don't endorse all that the author says about the translations, but I really like the graphic shown above.

The Text Comparison Tool

How do we read the passage repeatedly using Logos Bible Software tools? You could open the passage in about five or six translations and read them. However, we can do better than that using a tool called the Text Comparison Tool. Before we do, let me suggest setting up a Layout as follows.First, start with a blank layout. Click on the Close all panels button (see above). It looks like a small X inside a circle between the Layouts button and the question mark help button on the right end of the Logos Bible Software toolbar.Next, open the Text Comparison Tool from the Tools menu. You now see a screen that shows your top five Bible translations in vertical columns. To change what you see in the columns, click on the hyperlink in that window's toolbar just right of the reference box. A drop down menu appears.

1. Type in the text reference in the reference box.
2. Click on the hyperlink next to the Text Comparison Tool window. A drop down menu like the one above appears.
3. Type in your translation abbreviation.
4. Click the box to put a check mark in it when it appears at the bottom of the drop down menu.
5. Repeat this until you have all of your chosen translations in the Text Comparison Tool's toolbar above the drop down.

You will see a window with all of your chosen translations in the order you added them. You can now read through each column. However, you might want to see the differences between the various translations. To do that quickly, Logos gives you three options in the Text Comparison Tool.

1. Show differences - toggles whether to show or hide differences between the various text compared to the base text (left most translation).
2. Show base text - toggles between showing the wording of the base text next to the text of each translation or just show a red circle next to the words that are different from the base text.
3. Shows the comparison in either columns or as interlinear. You must certain translations as your base text for this to work. For example, the KJV works fine as seen below, but the Young's Literal doesn't.

The above shows the Interlinear style Text Comparison Tool. It has the Show differences turned on. Without the Show differences, you'd only see the text without the base text showing up next to the wording that's changed in each row.Notice how there's a little red dot next some of the words in the NASB95 column above. This denotes a difference between this translations and the KJV1900 base text.In the image above we see the texts in column style. I turned on the Show differences toggle and it puts the words of the base text (KJV1900) next to the words in the NASB95 with a line through them. As an example, in verse 3 we see the word "hath" with the line through it next to "has" in the NASB95 column.

Save a Layout in Logos

Now that we have the Text Comparison Tool set up the way we want it, let's add our favorite translations and a Notes document window. Arrange the Text comparison Tool the way you want it. I have it across the bottom half of the screen. Open your favorite Bible. Then open a Notes document. You will use the notes document to record any observations you make you as reread the text repeatedly in your various Bibles.To open a Bible, click the library button and then search for your translation by typing in the abbreviation. Click the title of the translation when it shows up and it will open. If you already have a preferred Notes document, open it from the Documents button on the toolbar. Type the name run the search box. Then click on the title to open it. Now arrange the Bible and the notes document the way you want. You can create a new one for each sermon or for all of your notes in a book of the Bible, the New Testament in general or for the whole Bible. I don't recommend the last one. Your document will get too big.We'll save the layout. Click on the Layouts button on the top right of the Logos Bible Software toolbar. In the drop down window, click on Save as named layout. A box opens right there. Type your name and hit Enter.From now on your can open this layout by clicking the Layout button on the toolbar. Then click the Saved Layouts in the column on the left. A list will pop up. Click on the name of the layout you saved in the step above.Now read through the text in each column. If you want, record your thoughts about the differences between the translations by create a note on each verse, for a single word, or for the entire passage. I do this by right-clicking the verse in my favorite Bible. A menu pops up. Select the verse reference in the right column of the pop up menu. Then select Add a note to "your notes document". A new note will show up in the notes document window. Start typing in it.

Next Steps

In our next few parts to this series, we'll look at recording observations in a notes document. You already started this as you reread the text. Then we'll look at questions that the text might present. You'll record those too and start to look for answers in the phase after our inductive study. In the last part of the inductive study, we'll create diagram or outline of the text.

Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep Part Three: Concordance Tool

We've already looked twice at the topic of choosing a text, but let me take a third swing at a tool that you should consider using for Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep. We'll take a look at the Concordance Tool in this third part of the series. I began looking at picking topics and picking passages in parts one and two. Now, how can the Concordance Tool help us in choosing passages to preach or teach.Here's the secret of this powerful tool...

The Concordance Tool Video

My video below shows the basics of the Concordance Tool in Logos 7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asQzvrTeMc4&feature=youtu.be

Benefits of the Concordance Tool in Logos

You may need to put away the old idea of a concordance while still using the principles to figure out what it does. The Concordance Tool, like a traditional Concordance, lists every word in a Bible translation, but here's the cool part of the Logos 7 Concordance Tool. You can change the list based on your own limitations and even use it to create a "concordance" for books other than Bibles.I used to own a hefty NASB Exhaustive Concordance (see above), since that was my favorite translation when I began preaching. I stopped using the huge physical book because Bible software is an exhaustive concordance by itself and its far more convenient than a 5 pound book. So why do we need a tool in Logos or any other program that calls itself a "concordance tool"?First, the Concordance Tool is customizable. I'll show you how to do that below or watch my video demo above.Second, users can create lists of Greek or Hebrew words even in an English Bible if. The tool uses the Strong's tags to do this.Third, you can also index more than just the English words of a Bible translation. It creates lists of other things like lemmas, roots of words, and Biblical entities like people, places and Biblical things. You can even search for references which are tags that link to other books, like a Bible reference in a footnote or in a Concordance or maybe even in a Christian Living book, like something by a popular author.The benefits listed here means the Concordance Tool helps us with picking a passage to preach because we can choose to teach or preach on a particular topic by opening the tool and searching for the most often used words in a book of the Bible. Let's say I want to focus on the idea of redemption, but I don't want to do a topical study of redemption. I want to select a series of passages that focus on the idea or subject of redemption. I could just search for redemption in the Logos search tool. But if I open the Concordance Tool, I can learn one particular author repeatedly discusses redemption.

How to Use the Concordance Tool in Logos

To get started open the Concordance Tool in Logos from the Tools menu. You'll find it in the second column under Reference. Click it to open it.The tool shows the last report generated or runs one if you haven't already used it.At the top of the window you'll see the book control drop down that usually shows the cover of the book with a small down arrow to the lower right corner. Click it and you'll see controls like the text size slider, the Find command, print, and the Close command among others.Next to the book control menu you'll see a link that shows the present book or Bible translation (see below). Click that Resource Reference link to change it. The Resource Reference search box shows up with a list of all library resources that you can use to run a Concordance Tool report. You can use a Bible in English or Greek/Hebrew. You can also run a Concordance Tool report on other books like commentaries or books by a single author. This results in an index of all the words in that book, if you do a Word report. More eon that below.Let's say you want to work in the NASB 1995 Update. Then, either find the book in the list or type in NASB in the search box and it will show all books with your search string in the title. Click to open the Concordance Tool using the book.Next you'll see what to index with the Concordance Tool. Click on the second link over (see above) to create an index. You can create one using one of the following:

• Word - the basic tool that works like a traditional concordance.
• Lemma - finds lemmas instead of words
• Root - finds roots instead of words or lemmas
• Sense - finds senses instead of the above
• Biblical Entity - finds persons, places, things, artifacts or measurements
• Reference - finds reference links

The last link lets the user narrow the search range. For example, in the screen shots here I've run the tool on the NASB 95 Update translation. So, when I click the last link it offers to let me narrow the range from All Passages to just ports of the Bible.You can pick your most recent passage selections or the common ones found in Logos. You can also create a new one by typing in the range at the box below the list labelled New reference range. If you plan to use that range again, give it a name in the Title box below the range box and then click the Save button. It will now show up in the list above the boxes.Along the left there's box that lets the user limit their Concordance Tool index. It's called the REFINE box or section. This changes dynamically based on what you've selected in the three drop down boxes at the top. For example, the index below shows the NASB95 Update with a Word index of All Passages.Along the left you can refine the search by omitting things, choosing certain languages only and searching in only parts of the text. So let's do an index of only English by clicking on English. Then only index the Words of Christ and only the Gospels (from the top).

Using Concordance Tool on Commentaries

You can use the Concordance Tool in a commentary on a book to find out what the commentary author seems to think is the most discussed topic. Run an index on a commentary on a particular book of the Bible. Then refine the search using the Refine box on the left.The index Logos creates will show what words the commentary uses most. Look for key theological terms to help you see what that commentary author focused on in that book. This can help you find passage in that book that cover that topic.The index above shows that I ran the tool on a commentary on Matthew. I refined the search to show English only and then limited it also to Heading Text. This shows that there are 6 headings in this commentary that talk about healing. A good sermon or Bible study series might be the healing stories in Matthew.  We also see 4 headings with the word Blind in it. Could you do a topical study on Jesus giving sight to the Blind? Those are a couple of ideas.Use this same technique with any book in your library. This will help you find illustrations too. We'll cover that more when we get to the topic of adding illustrations to our sermons and Bible studies.

How This Helps Find Texts to Preach

So why would I use the Concordance Tool for helping find passages to teach or preach?The resulting index (see screen show above) shows the words or word groups (take a look at the second hit,  a word group) that show up most in our refined search. If you click on the arrow next to a word, then you'll see a list of the passages that include that word or word group. The image above shows the list under "come comes; coming" which is the fourth most used word/word group in this refined index. So maybe, you'd want to do a sermon series on Jesus is Coming and select passage about why he came, when he might be coming back or what he said about his second coming.Drop down a few and you'll see the word group "go going" which you can also do a similar series but on why we should go or how Jesus wants disciples to go on his behalf.

Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep Part Two: Choosing a Text to Preach

Many preachers prefer to preach a topic found in multiple texts that the preacher expounds during a single sermon. I prefer to look for a single Bible text and that one text will dominate the sermon. In this second part of our series on Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep, we'll look at how the program can help the preacher choose a text to preach an expository sermon. The first part focused on using Logos to find a good sermon subject, for Topical Preaching or Topical Textual Preaching.This method of preaching will dominate the rest of our sermon prep series.

UPDATED: I added the Lectionary Tool at the end of this post.

What is Expository Preaching

I don't have the space look at the benefits of expository preaching versus topical preaching. Check out Lifeway's helpful list of 9 Benefits of Expository Preaching by Tony Merida. However, let me quickly define what I mean by this. Expository preaching includes the following:

• One single text dominates sermon's content.
• The main message comes out of the text. Some call this the Big Idea, as Haddon Robinson did in Biblical Preaching.
• The text will also dominate the tone and style of preaching. Poetry should have a poetic feel while narrative should include the story as a primary part of the sermon. Positive tone should not result in a harsh sermon.
• The preacher will explain, illustrate, prove and apply the Big Idea of the text while preaching that text.

What Kind of Text Are You Looking For?

Your expository preaching can include the following:

• A single passage or pericope of scripture, like my sermon this week on John 13:31-35.
• Part of a book like The Sermon on the Mount or Jesus' Farewell Discourse in John.
• A full book of the Bible like John's Epistles.

I've preached through all three taking anywhere from a single message to multiple years. This week I'm preaching on John 13:31-35 but I'm not preaching through John or through one section like the Farewell Discourse of Jesus in John's Gospel. I've preached through the Sermon on the Mount, but not through the book of Matthew ... yet. And last year I preached through John's letters. All of the above sermons or series of sermons were expository sermons and my Logos Bible Software sermon prep benefitted from the tools explained below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV9Viuw_xgc&feature=youtu.be

Tools for Finding a Text in Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep

Logos Bible Software sermon prep will use a number of tools to help you choose a single text or a longer part of a book or a full book of the Bible. In our earlier post we looked at finding a topic to preach. Topical preaching isn't my favorite way to preach. I don't go so far as some to say it's sinful or evil. However, we should use it sparingly.You can use the same tools used in the earlier post to find a single passage for your expository sermon instead of using them to find proof texts for a topical sermon with multiple texts. So head over to that post and use those steps for finding a single text on a particular topic.To find a text for an expository sermon, you can just start reading the Bible and get inspired by what you've read. Or you can hear someone quote a passage or read a book that refers to one. However, you pick that single passage you'll want to start reading it.

One Bible

My first step is narrowing the text (choosing where to begin and end my sermon). I start by reading the text in context multiple times. In your Logos Bible Software sermon prep process, open your favorite translation. Go to your library by clicking the library button, second from the left next to the home button on the toolbar. Or click in the command box and type Go to John 13:31-35 or whatever your chosen text might be. Read the text in context as follows:

• Narrative - read the story and read those passages before and after.
• Poetry - find the beginning and end of the poem and if it's in context of another genre then read the parts before and after. Psalms are a single unit of text by themselves so just read the chapter.
• Proverbs - read the chapter and decide if your Proverb is part of a collection of Proverbs about a subject, then pay attention to the other Proverbs about this topic. If it's not part of a section of Proverbs on a single topic, then read your single Proverb (note some Proverbs might include multiple verses).
• Didactic - teaching passages like the epistles require us to find the letter's overall argument and then look for this particular part of the argument to find how your text fits in the overall argument. This overall argument might include the entire book or a large section of the book, like Romans 1-11 or Ephesians 1-3.
• Prophetic - find the overall prophecy, often in poetic genre and other times as part of a narrative. One prophetic message will become one preaching text.
• Legal - read laws in context of their overall application, like laws about the priesthood in Leviticus or the feast days, etc. and choose your text-based on this overall section.

You can do this in any software. Logos doesn't do it better or worse than any other program. You can even do it in a paper Bible (shudder to imagine it).

Passage Analysis Tool

Checking out multiple translations can help you decide what verses to include in your passage. Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep will benefit from the Passage Analysis Tool. Go to Tools and click on Passage Analysis. Type your passage into the command box in the upper left corner. It will visually show the boundaries of the various pericopes in your top translations. Next to the command box you'll see a drop down box that reads "Pericope Sets". Click it to choose your translations by putting a check in the check box of your preferred translations. If you own too many books with pericopes, you may need to scroll to show them all. (What is a pericope?)After you finish choosing your translations, they will show up in columns in order of your rankings. Along the left you'll see links to the text that you can click to open your preferred Bible to that verse.The columns will show boxes that represent a pericope. For example, in the image above, notice that the ESV (dark blue column on left) has more pericopes than the NLT (green column third from the right above). Click on a pericope box and it opens in your top translation, but not that specific translation that you clicked. I'd expect it to open in that translation, but it doesn't for some reason.How does this help in choosing your text? You can see how all the various translation teams chose to break up the pericopes. They often vary wildly as in our chosen passage in John 13 above. The ESV, HCSB, NKJV, NRSV and UBS4 all agree that John 13:31-35 forms a single unit or pericope. However, the NASB, NIV 1984, and NLT all include John 13:31-38. If you scroll up you'll see that all but the NASB 1995 agree that the pericope begins with verse 31 (see below)..The two steps above should help you find a single pericope. You can probably preach single sermon on that passage. Or it may take too long to preach in a single message and you decide to break it up into a series covered over a few weeks.

Sermon Starter Guide

If you're still struggling to choose which verse to include in your expository sermon in your Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep work, then consider firing up the Sermon Starter Guide. Thanks to Graham Criddle in the Logos forums for this suggestion.You'll find it under Tools in the menu. Click on Sermon Starter Guide from the list along the left of the box that pops up. This opens the guide to the passage in your open Bible. You can type in your text and run the guide.For this step, we'll focus on three sections of the Sermon Starter Guide. Look at the Sermons, Sermon Outlines and Outlines sections. Under each you can see how other preachers or scholars have divided the passage and preached it or handled it in a commentary. You'll have to own books that include these three kinds of information. Open them and read over them to see what these other preachers chose as their text.At this early state, be careful to use these tools only as a guide for picking your sermon text. Don't read too much of the content because it might push you in the wrong direction and keep you from discovering your own Big Idea or sermon thesis.

What's Next

Now that you've looked at the text in multiple translations, checked out the Passage Analysis Tool and looked over the Sermon Starter Guide, it's time to pick the beginning and ending of the text.You'll want to consider another issue. How much can you cove run the time given. I preach in a traditional Baptist Church and the people typically expect about a 25 to 35 minutes sermon. I can stretch that to 45 on occasion. On Wednesday evening we have an hour and prayer requests take up about ten minutes, so I can easily go 50 minutes since it's a discussion time and not just my lecture.Choose the first and last verses and stick with your choice. Prayer will also help throughout the process, before, during and after you preach.

Pick a Book or Longer Passage to Preach

The above steps help preachers pick a passage for a single sermon. How do we find passages or books to preach in our Logos Bible Software sermon prep?Use the topical search steps from part one of this series and look at the context of the passages that you discover. You may find that an entire section will make up a good sermon series through a chapter of the Bible. For example, let's say you searched for a passage on prayer. You opened the Sermon Starter Guide and typed in Prayer. It returned the Lexham Theological Workbook. You opened it and found John 15:7. After reading the passage, you decide that you want to cover the entire topic of John 15 on remaining in Jesus. Or maybe you see a group of Psalms and so you decide to pick a few of them to preach through Psalms on Prayer.Maybe you like to preach through books of the Bible. Search for some topics that you're concerned about in your church. Use the following steps to search through your commentaries. If you don't already have a Logos Collection that includes your commentaries, create one using the steps in the company's helpful Logos Pro Training on the topic.Open the Logos Search feature from the search button on the toolbar. Choose a Basic search and then click the link labeled Everything, Type the name of your new Collection the box that pops up. Click it from the list that shows up below the search box. Now click in the Search box and type the topic. You'll find commentaries that include that word. Focus on the Introduction sections of the commentaries. You may find that a book fo the Bible talks a lot about a topic. Consider preaching through one of those books based on this search method.

Logos Lectionary Tools

I neglected to include the Lectionary Tool in the original version of this article because I'm not a lectionary preacher. However, many users will want to use it.Even if you're not someone who follows it regularly, it can offer some suggestions for preaching passages when you're not coming up with any ideas using the above tools or when a topical search (from part one) doesn't help. The lectionary follows the church calendar, so it's a good way to keep in step with the rest of Christendom.Logos includes various lectionaries and you can add them to your Home Page. I've done that and you can see it in the upper left corner. Edit your Home Page by clicking on the tiny gear icon in the upper right corner next to your name.This opens a new window that pops up. See it below. Along the left there's a list of things you can include on the left column of the Home Page. The list on the right of the pop up will show items to include I the main section of the Home Page.For the purpose of this article, notice the various lectionaries included. I have my mouse over the Revised Common Lectionary, one of the more popular lectionaries used today. I have the Christian Worship Three Year Lectionary selected. You can choose more than one or just your favorite by putting a check mark in the box next to the name.Now that you've selected your favorite lectionary or multiple lectionaries, click outside the pop up box to close it. The Home Page will refresh to update to the new settings. The lectionary will show up in the upper left. Click on the verse to open a new desktop Layout. You can also open this using the Layouts menu item from the toolbar. Click on Layouts. Make sure the Home Page Layouts section is open in the Layouts pop up. Then choose Lectionary.The Layout will open your Lectionary on the left to that entry. In the center you'll get two window panes. The top pane has your top 5 Bibles listed in the Library prioritization list in their own tabs. The bottom pane opens your top Commentary that includes that verse in one pane and your top devotional in the other pane showing the date of that lectionary entry.The smaller column on the right shows two panes. The top will do a search to find books in your library that include references to the passage from the lectionary. The bottom pane shows a Bible Explorer Tool window open to that passage. The Explorer gives you things like Biblical People, Places, Events, Thing and Media. You'll also see sections for your content, cross references and commentaries for that passage.If you're a lectionary preacher, then you likely already know that you can preach on one of the passages or include more than one. When I have used the lectionary to pick a passage, I just read them all and choose one that I want to preach.

Logos Bible Software Sermon Prep Part One: Choosing a Topic to Preach

How do you use Logos Bible Software to find a good topic to preach or teach? In this first of two parts, we'll look at how to find a passage or topic to preach and we'll use Logos Bible Software to make that happen. This is the first step in preparing a sermon or Bible study using Logos Bible Software. Over next few weeks we'll cover the major steps to preparing and preaching using Logos.Now, Logos Bible Software has a bunch of built-in tools that will help you use a topic to find a passage or multiple passages to then preach or teach. In this tutorial we'll use the topic of redemption and use things like the Bible Word Study tool, the Sermon Starter Guide, and other tools to get inspiration for your sermon.We've got a couple of ways you can learn this first step. You can read the article below. You can watch this video, or better, do both. Either way, Logos Bible Software gives a number of launch boards for the sermon preparation process.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZTrMB0PnuQBefore we jump in, let's look at the three primary approaches to preaching.

1. Topical Preaching - If you're a topical preacher, then you often start by looking saying, "I want top reach on redemption." Usually it's more narrow than such a broad topic. Logos can help you in a few ways to get inspired to preach on a topic and in this first part we'll show users how to start finding inspiration for a sermon a topic.
2. Textual Topical Preaching - Textual Topical preachers often begin with the topic in mind, but then use that to search for a specific passage of scripture to preach and then approach the sermon preparation in a textual way letting the text drive the content.
3. Expository Preaching - Expository preachers start with the text, often working their way through portions of scriptures, like a book of the Bible or a passage like the Sermon on the Mount or the Psalms of Ascents. We'll approach that in part two.

Here's what's great about using Logos to find your sermon's topic.

How to Use Logos Bible Software to Find a Topic or Passage to Preach or Teach

Logos Bible Software lets preachers jump into their search from many starting places. The easiest sits on top of the Logos Home page. Click the Home button in the upper left corner, if it's not already showing. Then use the Command box that sits about a third of the way to the right from the Home button. Type the topic you're interested in here and it will run a Bible Word Study on that word. We'll use the topic, "Redemption". That link opens the Bible Word Study Guide in Logos on a computer.

Bible Word Study Guide

You can also run the Bible Word Study by clicking on the Guides button on the toolbar. Then choose Bible Word Study from the left hand column in the box the pops up.The Bible Word Study Guide will offer a few categories of searches. First, we see the title section explained above. shows your word and lets you enter a Title and some notes about the guide. Each guide in Logos has a title section. Give our search a title to save it. You might want to come back to this search, especially if you use the Notes feature under each section of the guide to save some of your discoveries or inspiration.Now, we get the Topic section next. It shows links to the topic you searched in various dictionaries, like the Lexham Theological Workbook (link opens Logos if you're on your computer).If you have enough dictionaries, you'll see a "more" link below the list. Click it to see the rest of the books with the topic included. Hover over the links to see a preview pop-up of that entry. Click it to open the book.Below the list of books you'll see a link to open the Topic Guide and the Sermon Starter Guide. If you click either of these links, Logos will perform a search using that guide. More on that below.Don't just quit after the "Topic" section. There are two sections focused on Hebrew and then Greek word studies. These will help us find the Hebrew and Greek words translated redemption or redeem or something similar. Each section has a graph showing the various words for our topic in Hebrew or Greek. Click on the graph to see the verses or over each section. You can then see a preview pop-up of that verse when you over the verse.If you preach topically or use the textual topical approach, then you might choose to include one of these verses in the sermon. If so, you've already gleaned what you need. However, the rest of the Bible Word Study Guide might still inspire you to preach on that topic. Scroll down to see the last three sections included in the guide.

• Phrases - shows the topic if it's part of a phrase, like "grace of God" if you're searching for grace.
• Lemma in Passage - shows the lemma of a word in commentaries. There's a drop-down list labelled "Settings" that will let you narrow this search to certain collections or books.
• Textual Searches - find the topic in your top Bibles. The list comes from the Bibles prioritized in the Logos library. Logos shows you how to do that.

If you search using a Greek or Hebrew word you'll see a lot of other sections, but for our purpose, we're focusing on finding a topic to preach. Most people will do that by searching in English, so we'll skip Greek or Hebrew words.

Sermon Starter Guide

Another guide will help with topic discovery. The Sermon Starter Guide works like the Bible Word Study Guide, but looks in different parts of your library. It focuses on sermon-related resources. It's probably a better place to start than the Bible Word Study Guide.Run the Sermon Starter Guide from the Guides menu. Type the word in the search box and it returns a list of links. Here's what you'll find in the guide. Again we'll run one for "redemption" which you can open in Logos on your computer by clicking this link. Again we have the title section as explained above.

• Theme - The Theme section that shows a brief definition of the topic and links to open the Logos Factbook and a Topic Guide search. Make sure to open the Factbook and learn more about your topic there. This is a great tool for using the topical approach to sermon or Bible study preparation.
• Passages - we get a sampling of "Key Passages" which cover the topic that you searched for. There are also "Pericopes" listed. Below that you can add these passages to a Passage List or open every one of the passages found.
• Sermons - If your library includes books of sermons, they'll show up here. Read some sermons to get inspired. I personally would avoid this section at this point. Do your own study first before reading what other preachers preached about your topic.
• Preaching Resources - You'll mostly find sermon illustrations in this list or sermons. You'll also find some outlines and hymns.
• Sermon Outlines - If your library includes some sermon outline books, then they'll show up here.
• Thematic Outlines - For topical preachers, this section might offer the most help. More on it below.
• Journals - Find Journal articles on your topic, which can be helpful in learning more about it, often from. scholarly level.
• Collections - Searches your Collections, which include books that you put together, like Romans Commentaries. Find out more about them from the Logos training pages. This section's not as helpful for our purpose.
• Interactives - Interactive tools like the Psalms Explorer.
• Media Resources & Media Collections - Find images related to the topic.
• Soundfaith, Faithlife Music, Bookstore and Lightstock - all sections that take you to resources you can buy related to the topic.

Take a close look at the Thematic Outlines section of the Sermon Starter Guide. If you're preparing a topical outline for a sermon, then this section might do a lot of the work for you. You'll still need to study the passages included in these outlines, but this section alone could give you your outlines.Take our topic redemption. The Thematic Outlines section offers a few subtopics. We get a list of passages about "God as Redeemer" with a synopsis of the topic first. Then a few more subtopics about that subtopic like "God as the sole redeemer of Israel" and "God redeems his people from difficult personal circumstances" to name two. Each has some passages of scripture. Hover over each passage to view a pop up in your top Bible or click to open the top Bible.

Topic Guide

The Topic Guide (click here to run one on Redemption) is another great place to start looking for inspiration to preach a particular topic. Open it from the Guides menu and enter your search in the box. Here's what Logos includes in the Topic Guide. At the top you get the title section where you can save this Guide for future use. Put an explanation of the guide and each section has a Notes section to keep notes.

• Topic - This section lists links to the topic in dictionaries. Click "more" to see the entire list. You also see a link to the Facebook, Sermon Starter Guide, Bible Sense Lexicon and links to search the library for words related tot your topic.
• Related Verses - Finds verses about the topic.
• Sermons, Illustrations, Illustrations, Interactives, Media Collections Sections - like the Sermon Starter Guide finds things in each of those kinds of resources related to our topic.
• Atlas - finds things in atlas for our topic.
• Biblical People, Places, Things and Events Sections - These tools are like a search for each of these kinds of information with visuals and books that tell us about them.
• Soundfaith - online sermon database of audio.
• Topics.Logos.com - opens links to the online Logos resource related to our topic.
• Bookstore and Lightstock - links to buy content related to our topic.

Like the Sermon Starter Guide, the Topic Guide might offer the best options for our purpose. However, since we've covered most of these sections above, we won't rehash them here.

Create Your Own Personal Guide

These guides offer a lot for a user, but you know what you want to search for. So, create your own personal guide for searching Logos for a topic. To do this, click on the Guides menu (#1 below) and choose "Make a new guide template" at the bottom of the list and then click the drop down list on the right (see #2 below). The four options will change the list of sections to include that we see along the left side of the screen (see #3 below). It begins with the list of sections already in the pre-defined guides give to us by Logos. So, if you're searching for a topic, you'll probably want to select Preaching Theme or Topic. The Preaching Theme template has more sections, so click that to get started.Here's what I'd include in my own personal topic search guide.

• Thematic Outlines
• Themes
• Passages
• Preaching Resources
• Sermons
• Faithlife Music

 Don't forget to give your guide a title in the upper left corner. Click the box with the tiny pencil icon (see above). Now it will show up in the Guides menu.

Logos Bible Software Tools for Topical Preaching

By now you probably have a lot to get started with. However, a few other tools will also help. You'll find these in the Logos Bible Software Tools Menu.

• Bible Browser - a few of the tools found in the Bible Browser will help.
  • People, Places, Things and Events - great for finding passages about a person in the Bible if you want to preach on Disciples doing character studies or some other person-focused study or sermon. You could also do a study of a place or objects as jumping off points for a series on something like the Temple.
  • Miracles or Parables - a great source for a series on either.
  • Preaching Themes - we found this in the Sermon Starter Guide and I put it in my Personal Topic Guide.
  • Topics - of course perfect if we're looking for topics to preach.
  • Sacrifices - study on the various sacrifices in the Old Testament.
• Factbook - we found this mentioned above.
• Interactives - Logos includes a bunch of interactive tools and click this link with Logos on the computer and it will open to them.