If you disregard commentaries what other books/resources would you recommend for a priest/preacher?

Aleksandar Samardzic · 2025-07-03T06:58:45+00:00

There was an error rendering this rich post.

I'm pretty new to Logos and since getting Logos last month I have been spending quite a bit of money and have amassed a small library (5k resources). I'm orthodox and pretty much most of the authors and resources were not known to me. So I wen't out and searched for best commentaries and tried to buy them in collections so I get best bang for my buck.

Last week I spent hours just reading about 2 verses in Matthew and I was thrilled to say the least.

For now I have bought most of the commentaries that I could, and I have a few in my wish list that are not discounted or part of any collections that I have to save for (NIVAC, BECNT, WBC some Zondervan stuff) but I wonder if there are other books/resources that would help me except the commentaries?

I'm a priest in Orthodox church and do preaching and counseling as a part of my daily service, but I think I will start with some Bible teaching and studiying as I have access to Logos right now.

By chance I stumbled upon a fantastic resource "The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge" which I never knew existed and was blown away to be honest. It will really help me out in my study and I stumbled upon it by chance altogether. Are there any other books you folks recommend. Anything goes :)

Sorry for the longer post but I don't know if collecting bunch of commentaries is the only viable plan.

Thank you for your time

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

MJ. Smith

I would suggest that you run a Passage Guide looking at two sections - Ancient Literature and Catholic Topical Index. Then build your library based upon the resources they reference.

Francis

At least one good Bible dictionary or encyclopedia. At the popular level there is the revised ISBE. A more academic one would be Anchor Bible Dictionary.
A good topical BIble, for instance, MacArthur's and/or Nave's.
At least one cross-references compendium, such as the New Treasury of Scriptures Knowledge which you already discovered.
Dictionaries are generally useful and there are many kinds: counseling, topical, apologetic, early Church, early Judaism, biblical imagery, missiology, etc.
Depending on your level and proficiency with biblical languages, lexica and standard original languages Bible texts (for instance, Lexham Hebrew Bible or BHS, NA28 or SBLGNT, Logos LXX with morphology which connects the Greek translation to the underlying Hebrew).

Basically these are mostly tools that allow you to do the research work yourself and not just depend on the views of others expressed in commentaries or monographs. The list of recommandations would be longer if you work at a scholarly level (a lot of relevant primary sources available).

xnman

I suggest the following….

Halley's Bible Handbook.
Vines Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testaments.
Strongs

My reason is… one should gleam a perspective of what you're studying… i.e. No 1. and should understand the words being used… i.e. No 2 and No 3.

Just my 2 cents… 😎

Aleksandar Samardzic

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1373336#Comment_1373336

First of all thank you for your suggestions, please excuse me for my ignorance but what do you mean by Strongs? I have done a search and there are a couple books that start with that name

Theophan Dort

Dear Father Aleksandar,

Father, bless.

I'm an Orthodox Christian and many years user of Logos, and if you don't already have the Ancient Christian Commentary series, I strongly suggest you look at it. It's included in the Logos 8 Orthodox Gold legacy library, which recently was on sale, but regrettably no longer is. You may wish to add it to your list to consider the next time it's on sale (presumably next year). I always have that open when I have the Bible open. There are additional similar products that are also worth while, such as "Ancient Christian Texts," "The Church's Bible," "Early Church Fathers," "The Fathers of the Church," etc.. I'm sure you have already observed that nearly all commentaries inescapably have biases of those who wrote them, so some of the ones you mentioned are written from a very staunchly Evangelical point of view, which obviously can be quite different from an Orthodox point of view.

I am grateful for my Priest, who is solidly Patristic, never preaches his own "new," "fresh," ideas or insights, but constantly refers to the Fathers and the teachings of the Church. The Logos Passage Guide and the Topic Guide search Patristic resources (those you have) for everything in your library that is relevant to that passage or topic, and can be helpful in that regard.

Please be aware if you haven't done this yet that "Prioritizing your resources" is an important thing to do so that Logos's searches will present to you first its findings from the resources that are most important to you, personally. They have instructions on how to do that in the tutorials, etc..

Logos has vastly increased its collection of Patristic books and resources in recent years. The Orthodox "libraries" ( https://www.logos.com/configure/libraries?trackName=Orthodox ) are expensive but a very good value, depending, of course, on how many of the books in the one you're considering are books you'd actually want. The more recent ones tend to have more Patristic resources. There is a lot of overlap between these libraries, and you don't pay for resources you already have, so sometimes a library that's similar to one you already have can be amazingly cheap because you already have so many of its books, so, more than once I've purchased a Library that cost less than the few books in it that I wanted would have cost alone.

In Christ,

Theophan

Allen Browne

Theophan Dort recommended the Ancient Christian Commentary series. It's in Logos 2025 Orthodox silver. (The older Logos 8 Orthodox Gold is also available.)

Francis mentioned getting a good Bible Dictionary. You can start with the Lexham one that probably came with your Logos, and then add general Bible study dictionaries such as Anchor Yale or ISBE, or specialized ones like the IVP Dictionary of the New Testament series, or the The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (for background info on the NT).

You may also want tools that compare the LXX with the Hebrew OT or Greek NT.