Why did you use Logos today?

We've been thinking a lot about WHY people use Logos. We know the general things, of course: you write sermons, prepare Bible studies, do your daily devotions, write academic papers, satisfy your intellectual curiosity, or just study the Bible for pleasure and personal growth. And we've also got a pretty good idea of WHAT you do. You open layouts and consult Guides and read books and perform searches and make notes and everything else.

But what we're not sure we do know – and are very keen to find out – is the specifics. And that's where you come in. Could you answer – as specifically as possible – this question:

Last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

Try not to think about what tools you used inside Logos. Instead, can you tell me about what you wanted to accomplish?

Maybe you were wrapping up your sermon on Luke 2 and wanted to find a few sermon illustrations to polish it off.
Maybe you were starting a major study on the doctrine of redemption, and you wanted to make a list of all the journal articles and books that might help.
Maybe you were doing your daily devotional and wanted to read the Bible passage and your calendar devotional.
Maybe something else altogether.

As you're thinking about what you wanted to accomplish in your last session:

What did you want to achieve?
What output (if any) did you want to produce? A sermon? Some notes? Nothing at all?
If you knew you wouldn't have time to completely achieve your goals in this one session, which parts of your goals did you hope to achieve?

It helps us if you can think about the last thing you did, not just typically what you do, because we want to capture all those less common tasks as well as the very common ones.

So, last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

Thanks for your help!

Oh, and if you can tell us a tiny bit about yourself, that would be a great help too. Are you a pastor/priest? A lay leader? A student? A professor? A lay Christian? A Bible translator? Or something else?

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Comments

Carmen Gauvin-O'Donnell

Weeeellll, since I've been up since 4 am, I can be the first to reply, LOL!

Today:

(Background firstly - I'm in a paper-based Precept Ministries study of Numbers, which has been my usual method of study for 25 years... me and my colouring pencils are One, LOL! While I do that I hop onto Logos...)

I read through two commentaries (EBC and Wenham) and what they had to say about Num 4 once I had finished studying it.
I used and updated my Prayer List in Logos.
Using my Word of Promise Audio Bible, I listened to James 1-5 using the "Read the Bible in a Year" plan that I set up in Logos every year.
I read Robert Morgan's From This Verse for today. Tyndale was a cool man. [:D]

Then I hopped onto the Fora to see what was going on today in the "New Since Last Visit"

VOILA! You pretty much now have Carmen's Daily Bible Study laid out. [Y]

I am a Church Administrator for a wonderful church (Bethel Church, Kingston) here in Kingston, Ontario. Although not in a pastoral role (my favourite thing to do is to help our Board of Directors develop new policy [8-|]), I am pretty much considered the "Resident Christian Apologist" and have been helping students and adults with those topics for years, either through groups, or lessons, or Sunday services.

And today I was reminded by James of why I must make sure I stay ahead of our students: "Do not become teachers in large numbers, my brothers (and sisters, in my case!), since you know that we who are teachers will incur a stricter judgment."

As we head into Christmas and the New Year, thank you SO MUCH Mark, and Logos, for what your outstanding software allows me to do! May God bless you all richly!

Joseph Turner

Background: I used Logos throughout my MAR: Religion (2008) and MDIV (2018), and at my church I am the network administrator, Life Group teacher, and I teach Wednesday night classes which are heavily context based, which I also post to a YouTube channel. In my personal life, I am a public school teacher, teaching theatre, English, and an academic course on the Bible.

The last thing I did was prepare my last lesson for a Chronological Bible Study I've been doing through the whole year for my Wednesday night class. I used commentaries to research passages which I had highlighted previously (in Kindle because Logos doesn't sell any of the Zondervan Chronological Bibles!) from Hebrews, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, 3 John, and Jude. I also had to look up some special topics like rest (in terms of the promised rest in the OT and in Hebrews), household codes, and Jesus preaching to the spirits in the underworld.

I also used 1 Enoch in the Hermenia translation to bring in allusions from 2 Peter and Jude and the quote of 1.9 at Jude 14-15.

I typed everything in a Sermon document, where I included all passages as verses, typed notes with the illustration style, using different heading styles to organize sections.

What did I want to achieve? I wanted to be able to get to as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time.

What output did you want to produce? An organized "Sermon" document (really more teaching notes) which provides me with both passages from which I can read as well as my outline/notes from which to teach.

Joe Mayden

It is part of my morning quiet time, Reading plan, Prayer list, personal journal

I study my Greek and Hebrew

I prepare weekly Bible study

I prepare for a monthly sermon

I read books with other people

I explore God's Word, the church's history, counseling issues, and how to better disciple.

I am on Logos for an average 4 hours a day.

DMB

Last thing, only.

I'm reading a translation on my Kindle (not offered in Logos), and checking why a specific translation was chosen (eg OL-base, mss's, trend of translation, Fathers usage, etc).

Not a church-person.

Graham Criddle

Hi Mark

The last thing I used Logos Desktop for was my daily devotional where I was reading a passage from Proverbs.

I read it as “plain text” - without verse numbers - so I could just focus on the text. And made some brief notes on what I was reading / reflecting on.

And I am a church leader / pastor In the UK.

Kiyah

The last time I used Logos, I was following along with a YouTube bible study on the book of Romans. I wanted to open and follow along in the same translation the teacher was using (the NLT in this case). I had Logos on one side of my 14-inch laptop screen and YouTube on the other while following along.

Also, since I knew the teacher was a Logos user I wanted to find the same maps of the ancient Roman world and Paul's missionary journeys that he was displaying. So I used Logos to find those maps. Most of them were Logos media maps, one of them was Zondervan.

The teacher mentioned the meaning of a word in the biblical text, so I checked to see if there was lexical support for what he was saying the word meant. I opened several of my lexicons to see if they agreed.

About me: I am a seminary trained lay person. I've been a lay leader in the past but I'm not currently. I use Logos every day because I'm always studying something or curious about something or trying to answer some type of question. I also like to follow along with people studying the bible on YouTube so the activities described above are very common for me.

John Fidel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281418#Comment_1281418

I have been studying the letters of John, finishing 1 John and moving to 2 John. I opened Factbook and typed in 2 John, selected the bible text and then scrolled down to the bible book guide section and began going through the material on introductions, outline and content in preparation for the actual study of the book.

Once through that material I begin a word by word and verse by verse study of the book using my layout below:

I will then read the entire book, then begin going through the custom passage guide sections as I decide useful:

I will save the layout to return next time I open Logos. My layout is my workflow as I go from BWS to Passage Guide with access to information window, linked lexicons etc. I allow the Holy Spirit to guide my study and open up the scriptures to me.

I am lay person with no seminary training but having used Logos in this manner for a long time I feel very comfortable in my self (Spirit) directed studies.

Lastly I will open my prayer lists and go through the many people I am currently holding up in prayer.

Morgan

I'm a preacher involved in putting together and teaching material in multiple lessons per week.

I have been working through Exodus from the pulpit and am starting my study of the tabernacle. I wanted to dive into its lengthy description and possible symbolism. I found some material in different books and then organized all of the different sources into a sort of one-stop-shop document that I could draw from as I worked on explaining it in a more concise form.

To answer your questions more directly:

I wanted to organize the most relevant information into a single and easily consulted document
My output was a clippings document
If it wasn't achieved in a single session it was only because I would have had more material to sort through.

Brian Davidson

I did the following yesterday (and do the following everyday) as (1) a Bible/Greek/Latin teacher at a large private school and (2) as a student about to submit a dissertation and (3) a lay leader in my church and (4) an avid Bible reader for personal purposes.

This is the primary use (daily is an understatement, several times a day to all day is more like it)

see the Bible in parallel with English, Greek, and Hebrew, using specific editions of each
click or hover to look up an English gloss for original langauge words or access specific lexica
I searched on Greek and Hebrew words to find other instances of words and phrases

Yesterday (and daily but not several times a day)

Used a custom guide to access commentaries
Read sections of commentaries and cited them
Use the ancient literature section to explore references to my passage outside the Bible

Kiyah

Mark, forgive me if this has already been done or is planned, but you should post this question in all of the language forums (German, Spanish, Korean, etc.) and Verbum forums so that you get the most diverse set of responses. I love that Logos is asking this question in this way (focusing on what we're actually doing instead of just throwing tools and datasets at us). Now just make sure you get ecumenical and global input.

Fabian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281422#Comment_1281422

I fired today Logos up to import a PB Bible. The import went through well. But the double click for inline search crashes Logos reproducible. Made a bug report in the forums and wait until this is fixed.

See https://community.logos.com/forums/t/220156.aspx

Unfortunately I encountered more bugs and limitations in/with Logos that I hoped.

Olli-Pekka Ylisuutari

Last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

I was faced with a challenge as to the division of the Western and Eastern Church had anything to do with Chalcedon 451 A.D., and as I suspected and remembered, that it was much later (A.D. 1054) , I quickly checked my church histories that it is indeed so.

Before that a member of my congregation came to me after my homily or sermon, angry, as I had used the word "Palestine" in my sermon. I had to check in Logos, whether my usage of the word "Palestine" is correct when used interchangeably of the "holy land" or "Israel." It turned out that it was correct (already used for the Philistines and by Rome after A.D. 70), although the word is highly politized in the current climate and political landscape.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

xnman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281429#Comment_1281429

Welll.... for myself... I am not a Catholic but I am a "Sola Scriptura" person to a fault. I love the bible. Logos is open on my computer almost all the time. I spend about 3-4 hours a day (sometimes a whole pot of coffee) in Logos doing: my readings, my memorization work.

This week, I am studying in the Major Prophets currently and wrote 2 bible class lessons and a sermon using Logos for research and confirmation of what I was thinking in my sermons class teachings. On Saturday, I review my sermon and class material so I am ready for Sunday.

I have a layout called "My Study" which has NKJV linked A, NKJV unlinked, The Outline Bible linked A, Bible Book Explorer linked A, Exegetical Guide unlinked, and Search. It also has "My Cross Reference", "My Commentary" Personal Books. I also have a Clippings and a Sermon open also. This is my "standard layout" for building sermons and such.

(Edit: I would love to see the ability to be able to edit a Personal Book in Logos and not have to use Word to edit it and rebuild it. This would be an awesome feature!!!)

I use Search a lot to get info or refresh what I think I know about some subject that might come up in my lessons.

This past week I did a deep dive into Isaiah as that's my study currently. I looked up what living condition was like for Isaiah, what kind of man he was, why God chose him etc and etc.

During all this, I generally build a Note or two or three. I love Notes!

I find with the above layout, I can put together my thoughts about some subject rather quickly.

I find as I study, I build Clippings first to parallel my sermons. I've learned, for me anyway, this keeps me on track.

I hope I understood what was asked for. [8-|]

Dave Hooton

Try not to think about what tools you used inside Logos. Instead, can you tell me about what you wanted to accomplish?

I wanted to check/add two specific bible references to a bible study.

Being the leader of a small group.

MJ. Smith

So, last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

I have been working on adding resources to the Index of Bible Studies see Index of Bible Studies - Logos Forums. This has two parts - tagging the resources already indexed (including adding as print library resources that are not in my library) and building the entries for resources in my library which have not been indexed. This project has reminded me how inconsistent the typing of books is and how much that affects the ability to do this task quickly and effectively. It has also led to the identification of a problem in the building of L4 addresses. I mention the inconsistencies and errors because these are a common result of my use of Logos for any purpose.

As for myself, I am a typical lay retiree formerly active in liturgical, catechetical, and lay Bible studies activities.

NB.Mick

Last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

This is totally different from session to session.

The actual last time, earlier today, I saw there's a new version of "Index of Logos Bible Studies" in the forums (thanks, Richard Wilson!), wanted to build and upload the PB - actually wondering whether the PB would be too large to upload - and was able to do both without any issues. I also wanted to confirm the number of links to other resources (about 76.000) in this great tool. I did want to produce a compiled PB (actually an update to the one I have for over ten years now) on both my Logos and Verbum installations as well as confirm a fact about that PB.
The time before I tried to recreate some search or VF filter I've seen on the forums or the FL groups. This is something I do quite often, my goal being to recreate bugs, reperform exotic searches, sometimes trying to come up with a better way to run searches / build VFs or library collections etc. I didn't want to produce something for myself, rather trying to help another user in their searches (I think it was about finding a place/places in the NT, I suggested using LN coding for that).
The last time I used Logos "for myself" I wanted to prepare for our bi-weekly small group of about half a dozen men. I wanted to get some insights on the text we wanted to read, but I also wanted to print out that text for myself from one of my bibles. This is an in-person meeting and I don't run Logos while I'm there (different to when we used to have all-virtual meetings during Corona times, where I would run - and screen-share - Logos during the meeting). I typically look for some bible study resources and not too-heavyweight commentaries and print out what I regard as potentially useful for the meeting. For that last meeting I also wanted to have the list of some bible verses with me that were referred to in a recent sermon by our pastor on the general topic we were studying (so I had made a Passage List of those). I'm glad I can print things in a larger font than books/bibles are usually printed, and in that group meeting I did read the bible texts from Logos printouts instead of from my physical bible.

Oh, and if you can tell us a tiny bit about yourself, that would be a great help too.

I'm a lay leader in my church, but I'm also a bookaholic. I half-expected to answer with "just wanted to continue reading that interesting book marking up the most relevant chunks of text" but just this last week that didn't happen since the book wasn't available for purchase in Logos so I was forced to use the Kindle Cloud reader for that.

Christian Alexander

A little bit of background is needed. I completed my BS in Interdisciplinary Studies with cognates in Religion, Bible, Psychology, and History with minors in Theology and English Literature. I then completed 3 Graduate Certificates in Biblical Studies, History, and Biblical Greek. This gave me a lot of time with Logos from 2017-2018 forward. I consider myself a layperson, student and lay-guide in the biblical world. I use Logos every day on Desktop, Mobile and Web apps. Today I did reading in Revelation 14:1-3, Luke 1 and Psalm 65 and read a commentary on each passage as part of my daily readings. I take what I call bite size notes, just some interpretations and observations of the text being read. This past year I did not read the Bible cover to cover. Then I did a more technical study looking at leadership from the New Testament, particularly the Gospel of John. I am doing a study on it for my next Bible study starting in January. I think it will be fun.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281427#Comment_1281427

Yesterday I did a few things

I read the Bible in English, Greek, and Hebrew, using different editions of each.
I did searching on an English gloss for original language terms and access specialized lexical resources.
Research where the Lord intersects with peace without the term God or Jesus near.
Read books while on the go.

In the past week

I looked up more occurrences of terms and phrases in Greek and Hebrew.
Viewed advanced commentaries on the New Testament in a collection, then read portions of comments and cited them.
I used the Greek Constructions Dataset, which Rick Brannan mentioned a few days ago, to better comprehend Greek.

GaoLu

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281486#Comment_1281486

Logos is a sort of appendage, as personal and integrated as my fingers. I am there and I am not, and may be don't even realize I am "using Logos"--it is that much an extension of my thinking and doing.

1. All the usual as Mark Barnes indicated above.

But what was different?

2. Preparing four mornings devotions for an upcoming of New Years retreat.

3. Reading Spanish Bible and books (with help from the translator.)

4. Preparing some Biblical thoughts to encourage friends in China

5. Considering info from "The Dictionary of the Bible and Ancient Media" on Traditionsbruch...

6. Searching for examples or hints of when Biblical people and churches necessarily broke with tradition and resulting felt crises due to __, __, __, __...

7. Looking for links in sameness and cultural shift in social memory and the connection between social identity and historical memory

8. Buddhist worldviews on prayer and "god" because a Buddhist monk wants me to teach him how to pray like a Chistian
9. All day long it goes like this....but no two days are alike.

Veli Voipio

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281499#Comment_1281499

I am a retired engineer, and I have been working for Christian missions and also in secular industry. Pietist Biblical Lutheran. Occasionally helping immigrants from the middle East, although exegetical/archeological speculation is my main hobby.

Last time and now, I am reading https://www.logos.com/product/223227/the-new-encyclopedia-of-archaeological-excavations-in-the-holy-land , now on page 1260 out of 1529. I am trying to find support to my speculation that Joshua's conquest took place in about 1050 BC. I am reading the text and checking maps and other background data (background commentaries, bible dictionaries, chronology lists). The links to other books in the text save a lot time (although many of them are pending tagging). Occasionally that book discusses Hebrew or other inscriptions, and then the original language tools are useful. May take some more months to actually accomplish this goal.

mike

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281517#Comment_1281517

During sermon prep. Looking for good illustrations. So difficult even though I have 30k resources. The ones in Guides are "all over". It's like looking a needle in haystack. I NEED A MAGNET!
During sermon prep. I have to use Mark Barnes' Commentary Collections instead of something that Logos owns. SO SAD. Why don't Logos fix this and polish what Mark Barnes has done. I love Mark Barnes' Commentary Collections, hands down, it's the only one usable. Logos has nothing and has no solution on this, and Logos sells commentaries and wants us to use them, and yet we can't really use them well. I can't accomplish my task well in searching which commentaries I need to read or I need to discover.

Kaye Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281552#Comment_1281552

Last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

I was working through MPSeminars training and trying to be more clean/efficient in how I use the various tools in an organized manner. I was looking over old notes considering the best way to cut them to smaller chunks that show up better in my Bible when I mouse over them. I was cleaning up how I prioritize/tag/make collections and series groups for my books, as well. I did my morning reading through a translation-in-a-year and prayed my daily and day-of-the-week prayers. I began an in-depth Precept style study of John 10 for a class. I'd like to have printed notes/highlights after each chapter of that study but I have given up as print quality is hard to make nice straight from Logos.

I am a Lutheran congregation member (LCMS synod) with a thirst for God's Word and the chance to have more of it stored in me so I can apply it and use it in tough situations. I'd love to study every single Bible book, Precept style, or at least as many as I can before I go home. I've used Logos/Libronix since I became a Christian in the fall of 2009 but I feel I have not kept up with using the best tools and techniques as the software has evolved.

Thanks and a blessed Christmas to you and yours!

Kaye

Bruce Dunning

So, last time you used Logos Desktop, what did you want to accomplish in that session?

I wanted to continue to use Logos to help me connect more to the Lord through my daily devotional readings:

Reading the OT chronologically, translating the 3rd verse from Hebrew to English (I wish I could do more but my Hebrew skills are not as good as I would like). At the same time I'm reading the 2nd edition of the NET Bible and referencing each of the study notes for that section.
Reading the NT chronologically, translating all of the portion from Greek to English. Just like the reading the 2nd edition of the NET Bible and referencing each of the study notes for that section.
Reading a devotional reading from Timothy Keller's "Songs of Jesus" which is a year-long devotional through the Psalms

I work for a Christian camp as the Executive Advisor and preach a number of messages in various contexts throughout the year.

Mal Walker

As a student at bible college, I last used logos to aid my learning of Greek vocab.

Specifically, I was using seeking to input Greek words along with their English glosses into Anki for memorization. To do this I had three applications running concurrently, Logos, Anki, and an excel spreadsheet. I had made the spreadsheet previously, it contained a list of all Greek words (and respective Glosses) from the Book of Romans, chapters 1-8, that occur less than 30 times in the Greek NT, and it is from this spreadsheet that I was systemically inputting words into Anki.

What did I use Logos for? Firstly, for each word that I inputted I would have a go at pronouncing it out loud, and then check my pronunciation with the pronunciation tool (Modern). It's important I get the pronunciation correct/consistent at this stage because whatever memory association I create (such as an image, saying etc) to aid in connecting the Greek word with its meaning is very often tied to how the word sounds.

From there I would also frequently check the word in the morphology chart to briefly see how it is used, how often, and where. This tends to be a more helpful visualization of data then using the search tool. If I'm struggling to come up with a memory association, I use the morph chart to quickly cross reference the most common morphological usage of the word with a bible passage I know well and try to create a memory association from that.

I also used the Greek NT to double check usage of the word in the particular chapter of Romans I'm inputting vocab for, and check the English gloss/meaning of the word with BDAG on occasion or as fancy takes me.

So, what did I want to accomplish? Input of specific Greek words into Anki for memorization. How did Logos help? By allowing me to check pronunciation/usage/meaning of the words as I input them into Anki.

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1281499#Comment_1281499

HI Mark - sometimes it's not the home run new exciting things, sometimes it's just attention to the things that help people use the product better, that it works more consistently. There is gold in these forums if Logicians look hard enough. It drives me crazy the focus on new new new, when there is ample work to just make things that are there now work REALLY WELL.

https://community.logos.com/forums/t/221304.aspx