Tell Us How You Use Logos!

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My devotions each day which may take me to delve into Hebrew or Greek Also sermon preparation as an elder

Also general study into theology History language and many other ways one can get answers in Logos which I used since 1995 at least. Note I also use the German translations and even Afrikaans ones. Latin is read slowly needing a dictionary as my remembering my vocabulary after learning it 60 year ago is understandable Wish I could go into classics in English or normal classics but time is not there hope helps you

Denise,

Great point. . . Today the ministry of Prophets seems to be a thing of the eternal past. . . Well, it seems. . . God is of the present, not the past.

He is 'I AM' !!! Not I WAS. . . not I WILL BE. . .  The Lord still works 'now' in the present the very miracles and prodigies we read in the NT.
It's too bad that some will locate God's awesome power only to the past. God, to some is the God of the past and the remote future. A mild form of deistic Christianity, I think. The Christ who does nothing but listens to our prayers and sits back and sees our hurts but does not get involved in our lives conversationally, relationally and powerfully. Not all, but some believe like this.

Denise, . . .someone may say that he or she was called by God to be a teacher, pastor or another of the five ministry leaders. I guess I can say the following because it's truth: May I humbly and fearfully testify that the Lord has blessed me, all for His Supreme Glory, as a prophet and teacher?

I use Logos roughly four hours everyday. All for His Supreme Glory and for the edification of the Body of Christ. . .

Blessings. . .

Eis Cristos

Al Sosa

1.I am Seminary Student and a Sunday School Teacher.

2. I use it for school papers, and preparing for Sunday School Lessons.

3. My favorite feature is the Word Study Feature.

4. Verse look up could be faster. Other than that I'm pretty happy.

I use Logos for a lot, I spend hours in the software every day. - Apologies for any Typos it's 23:00 in the UK right now

How I use Logos

Daily Reading

The reading and studying part of my daily devotion is done using the software, I wake up between 4 and 5am each morning and begin to read through our church bible reading plan which has been the Connect the Testaments Plan from Faithlife for the past two years.

Daily Notes

I've always made notes when I read the bible and this year our Pastor asked if I could publish my notes each day so that the people following the bible Reading Plan from our congregation can get daily insight and application. This is where Logos really comes into its own. I can check the logic of a comment I've already made or look for new insights to inform my own understanding before commenting with a commentary, guide or article on a topic being covered not to mention the instant word studies. 

The software allows me to publish these notes verse by verse using the community note feature, it is a little limited as on the Mac carriage returns do not work and it has no spell check so I need to make the note in my "Day One" journal app to break up paragraphs and spell check and then paste back over before publishing to the WWMF faithlife community. We just launched a church App too so I publish the notes to our church site and in turn to site feeds them to the App.

Boy's Brigade (Youth Group)

I'm an officer in our Church's Boys Brigade Battalion (7th London) looking after the Company Section, we use the Topic Guide in Logos to have some really great lessons, last week we typed the word Relationships into the topic guide and the lesson was just great.

Sermons

My self and other young men are asked to preach once or twice a year in our special end of month evening services, these are usually youth services which are attended by all the family. Sermon prep in Logos is great with all the tools and resources available although I wish I could make a flowing presentation or document and not just makes notes and clippings. My most recent message was on "God's Narrative" and before that on "God at work in you" and the first one was on "The Sovereignty of God" [:)]

Documentaries

One of the main uses of Logos for me and the motivation behind some of the volumes I have in my library is to make documentary films and essays to help the body of Christ with Apologetics etc.

The first Documentary I used Logos to help me make is called The Gospel, it is a 1 hour documentary exploring the nature and truth of the Gospel. I wrote, directed and edited this documentary and we now have over 3000 which we give away for FREE

The latest documentary I was the Editor for is called CHOSEN and is regarding Christian Advocacy for Israel, I used Logos to help with research for the documentary in particular dates for a timeline animation we included. You can watch it for free on our App

The current documentary I'm working on is a rebuttal to a KJV only documentary called "New World Order Translations" I literally began work on the essay yesterday and plan to create the documentary defending modern english translation later this year.

Some Feedback and Ideas

ESV Audio Offline

I Listen to the ESV as part of my reading plan on my Mac each morning, having to be online can cause problems when the connection is not good, it would be great to have the ESV audio offline

Daily Journals

For "every day" user like me a Journal feature would be great, one that tags the date, time and even place when notes were made and makes that meta data visible (created on xxx at xxxx). This feature should have the ability to include clippings and notes linked to a vers, word or passage as well as random free text which is just linked to the date and time. The Day One App on the Mac might give you some good ideas.

Family Sub-User Accounts

I have a beautiful wife and two great kids (5 and 2), I would love for them to use Logos too but in the own way. It would be great if the application allowed sub-users, maybe 5 for each master account so Kids etc can use logos and have their own set of notes and layouts etc without accidently deleting mine

Bookshelf

For books that you just want to read or want to get around to reading there should be a bookshelf feature. the bookshelf should be empty by default and users only add the books the really want to get around to reading or are reading now... I know they can be added to the shortcut bar but the icons are so tiny and everytime I see an interesting book I didn't even know I had in the library preview I add it to the shortcut bar... it is way to full now... it would be great to have a add to bookshelf option for every volume.

Projects

There should be a projects feature for those working on a paper, writing a book of their own, creating documentaries or anything of that nature. The project would be like a special type of layout where objectives can be set and progress tracked and we should be able to add to project library books that would be useful for the project. Projects may consist of multiple documents, tasks and even a calendar function to help user stay on track with the research vs production etc. it could even have special faithlife groups to help with collaborative working etc.

Currently I'm using layouts like projects but the features to help you stay on top of the project and pull all you have found in the library and written yourself together just isn't there.

Spell Checking

For big writers who have bad typing habits, spell check is just essential, we need this in every field in the application where we can type

When did I make that note?

There should be meta data on every note so you can look back at old notes and have an idea of when you made the note.

Quick Lists

today I'm looking for a list of all the Greek Manuscripts for the essay I'm writing for the rebuttal documentary I mentioned earlier, it would be great if lists could be found as a type

Commentary Summary view (first few lines without needing to hover)

I use the Lexaham bible guides for Paul's Letters which are great, it would be good to have an automated summary of the first few lines of a commentary on a particular passage in a special passage guide view, maybe a view called detailed or with summaries so you can at a glimpse get an idea of where the commentary might be going

User Summary Banner

This is just aseptic but it would be nice to have. We should have a user summary banner on the homepage possibly with things like user details (name), volume count, library value, highest bundle, bundle list, most recent note, most recent volume downloade, most recent volume accessed.

Clint,

Great feedback. I wrote some similar feedback. I like the 'Family Sub User Accounts'. I once suggested this in the forum, but got knocked down because of the license agreement, as I was told. I think 'Projects' is what I have suggested but as multi-layered layouts. Maybe it's the same. Either way, it's a great idea!

Great post Clint. . . be blessed. . .

Eis Cristos

Al Sosa

Denise said:

(Plus I never expected the forum to have prophets; that's great!)

Things turn up where you least expect them, Denise.

Hi Jayson—

I consider myself an ordinary guy seeking to stay grounded in the Word of God. There was a time that I taught the young adult Sunday school class. I use Logos to read devotions, daily Bible reading, and even venture off on rabbit trails when I happen to read something that piques my interests at that moment. I also like to do word studies and to further my understanding of the biblical meanings of words in their contexts. I have been using the Android application more often when it comes to basic Bible reading and reference during Church Bible studies or earlier this month when I last participated in the local Bible Read-a-thon in the community park. I am thankful that I can download the books I need for off-line use on my tablet when WIFI is not available or not an option (prevent distractions). I also have used Logos notes to record notes from Bible-based conferences while have my digital Bible open opposite the note file.

Just a guy interested fascinated obsessed by the things of Christ for the past 40 years or so.  And even though I maintain a desktop computer (plus some Android devices) to run Logos, I much prefer sitting "under my fig tree" (cf. Jn 1.48) and just pondering the Scriptures by using my own, God-given, built-in cpu.  Consequently, I use Logos far less than many of the power users except to look up ideas and interpretations of a select few authors or to check out some Greek and Hebrew.  I do like to use the Notes feature to jot down theological perambulations but they are of more use to jog my memory at a later date than they are to try and record every reference, idea, word study, illustration, or the next great book, etc.  In other words, simple note taking is all I want or need.  Hyper-links, of course, are fantastic and worth their weight in gold. 

To be honest, I could care less about such things as whiz-bang highlighting ("pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers"), guided passage studies, sermon starters, puzzles, a ton of books that I own, the social/community aspects, and lots of other stuff. 

The word studies are ok but only as a starting point.  Ditto the exegetical studies.  The timelines are interesting as are the Bible Facts but I use them sparingly.

Bottom line:  I like the program ... I realize that it is trying to be all things to all people ... I use it minimally compared to others ... but, hey, it does what I want and does it very well.  

That's about all I can say.

1. Does Logos help you fill a specific role? (e.g., pastor, student, professor, etc.)
2. What tasks do you do you count on Logos to help you with in your study?
3. Do you have a favorite feature?
4. Do you have particular feedback you’d like to pass along?

1. I'm a "layman" and use Logos for my own education.  

2. I do teach a Sunday School class (I prefer a verse by verse style), and use Logos to cut/paste verses into my notes.  I heavily highlight what I read, and often wind up taking screen captures of the markup instead of cut/paste the text.  I write my lesson plans in Word.  I've tried to project Logos in class before to use it to teach from, but that was unwieldy--noone like to watch someone else mouse around an app.

3. My favorite feature is highlighting, by a long shot.  Reading plans are a second, with layouts being a third favorite feature.  I sometimes use the passage guide.  I like the Greek word pronunciation ... will we ever see (hear) the Hebrew?!?!? ... and the interlinears.

4. My penchant for highlighting, coupled with buying more resources than I can ever read, has really caused performance problems with the app.  The mobile apps are nearly unuseful because they choke on my *** massive *** highlights files.  I applaud the efforts of the programmers to work on app performance--there have been many helpful changes over time--but in general, I seem to bring Logos to it's knees--even on a beefy computer w/ SSD drive.

Jayson,

Hear our my thoughts:

I am a pastor. Logos is the first program I turn on. I use it to exegete the passage. My Greek is rusty and my Hebrew has long been forgotten so all the aids really help to make sure that my understanding of the key words stays within the boundaries of their original meaning--lexicons, commentaries, and sermons are the most helpful. SermonCentral is a waste of time. I know this is harsh but my style and approach is much different and I do not trust the authenticity of many of the stories. I seldom can verify them.

I will occasionally attempt to remaster my Greek and Logos serves me well with the learning videos.

During my Dmin study Logos was invaluable. It drastically shortened my search for Scripture verses. Unfortunately it had very few of the required reading in digital form and I could not afford to purchase one series. But for those who just beginning will enjoy the expanding resources.  

Last year I took a month sabbatical and immersed my thoughts in John Owen's works. The digital format, note taking, highlighting really helped me to retain the information and refer back to it.

The weakest feature of Logos is the inaccurate information that I received when purchased Logos 4. I was told my CPU (i3) could easily handle it. WRONG. I often become bogged down. I cannot even think to upgrade to Logos 5 until I purchase a new machine which may not happen till Logos 6 comes out. 

Morris Procter's videos are another excellent aid. I have attended both seminars and they are fun and he is a great guy but the videos are far more helpful than the seminars because I can keep referring back to them.

Dear Veli:

If you will go to Blue Letter Bible, they do have a pronunciation guide for both the Hebrew and Greek.

God bless you,

Justin T. Alfred

Does Libronix help you fill a specific role? (e.g., pastor, student, professor, etc.)
  Yes! As head rabbit-trail chief, the large library is a blessing.  Whoever 'curates' it, is my favorite advisor

What tasks do you do you count on Libronix to help you with in your study?
  Keeping my place when I'm reading, along with arranging my other books relative to my reading

Do you have a favorite feature?
  Yes ... workspaces.  I have one for each of my 'worlds' I'm exploring (e.g. 2ndTemple, archaeology, womens, etc)

Do you have particular feedback you’d like to pass along?
  Only one:  allow a 'driver' link so you can connect commentaries to your Bible. Pretty basic.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ I use Logos for my personal devotion time and meditation.

As a life-long student of the Bible, theology, history, Judaism of the 2nd Temple Period etc. etc. I use Logos for reading my books all the time, at home, at the parking lot, waiting my wife while she is shopping [:)], at the airports, at the doctors etc. I use iPad version of Logos for that purpose.

As a senior pastor I prepare my sermons, mainly at home, adding 2 more monitors to my laptop, working with Logos and MS Word, copying all kind of material to the study document. Later I write a sermon out of the gathered material. Logos is the only Bible software I use. I do exegesis, word study (my favorite feature), I look sometimes at the topical guides, maps, and many other tools in Logos. Always I do Passage Guide to the needed passage and look through the commentaries. Logos is the main software I use on my computer. I do not preach from Logos, I preach from pdf file saved at the iPad.

As a Bible school teacher I use Logos special layout while teaching. I do it directly from Logos, sing a big screen of the TV (or projector) to show students what I want them to see.

As a missions leader I use my electronic library in Logos to carry it with me to places I would hesitate to take one single book with me. It is great to know all my library is in my pocket in that situations. While being with leaders at the mission field, discussing some issues with them, I can open Logos in the evening, checking with my resources on given subject I am not able to predict at home I would need. Its just great to have this possibility.

Simply, I can't imagine how Apostle Paul could make it without Logos [:D]