Advice on good study tools please

I'm new to Logos and have not had (yet) the benefit of a Seminary education. I recently purchased the Leadership Edition of Logos 4 and want to use the best tools I currently have at my disposal for the study and teaching of the Word.

Can anyone kindly suggest to me works to include and works to avoid in my studies to help me save time and mistakes? Apart from getting a benevolent donation the Leadership Edition will be the only one I can afford for quite some time so additional books or upgrades in Editions will not be helpful suggestions.

I'm currently reading through MacArthur's Rediscovering Expository Preaching and came across the great advice on making sure the tools you use are the best available for the job at hand - thus my query.

Thanks in advance for your time and consideration!

Tom

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Blair Laird

Not sure I am answering your question properly but...

The best tools for me are my systematic theologies. The best tools for another person may be something else. Each person has their own style, and their own field that they are working in. There are pastors who do topicals pastors who go chapter by chapter verse by verse.

So what are you trying to accomplish ?

Tom Gray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68919#Comment_68919

So what are you trying to accomplish ?

I will be doing verse by verse studies. I was looking more at what Bible translations do people prefer to STUDY with. Which dictionaries or commentaries are orthodox and which one's are just WAY out there. When should I pull out the Greek/Hebrew tools and what references are the best available. That kind of thing.

I have decided to take a page from Chuck Swindoll's study recommendation and not use commentaries unless I'm stumped on a pasage or until I think I'm ready to write my lesson/sermon to make sure I'm not way out there in left field by myself.

I have read Charles Ryrie's Basic Theology and William Evans' The Great Doctrines of the Bible, in print in my personal libarary. I enjoyed them very much.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68929#Comment_68929

dictionaries or commentaries are orthodox

Obviously, you need the Orthodox Study Bible (not in Logos), the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, Catena Aurea ... yes, I'm teasing. "Orthodox" could mean Orthodox Jews, Eastern Orthodox ... a little more specific will get you better reconmmentations.

Bruce Junkermann

Hi Tom, I scanned through the books you have from the Logos site and you do have quite a few excellent resources! Here are a few that I would highlight...

Commentaries: Bible Knowledge Commentary, 2 vol on whole Bible; Bible Exposition Commentary (NT); Teacher's Commentary

Bible Dictionaries: New Bible Dictionary is excellent as well as the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary

Others: Might want to check out MacArthur's "How to study the Bible"

Then I would start prioritizing your Bibles, Dictionaries, and Commentaries and then make some collections. Check out the wiki (link at top of page) for videos on how to do this.

Prefer NASB95 and ESV.

Hope that gets you started. Have fun!!!

Jeremy

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68929#Comment_68929

So what are you trying to accomplish ?

I will be doing verse by verse studies. I was looking more at what Bible translations do people prefer to STUDY with. Which dictionaries or commentaries are orthodox and which one's are just WAY out there. When should I pull out the Greek/Hebrew tools and what references are the best available. That kind of thing.

I have decided to take a page from Chuck Swindoll's study recommendation and not use commentaries unless I'm stumped on a pasage or until I think I'm ready to write my lesson/sermon to make sure I'm not way out there in left field by myself.

I have read Charles Ryrie's Basic Theology and William Evans' The Great Doctrines of the Bible, in print in my personal libarary. I enjoyed them very much.

I hope Logos benefits you and the church you are ministering to.

With all due respect to Chuck Swindoll, I would recommend checking a commentary before you preach or teach every time, especially if you are going to be utilizing the Greek and Hebrew tools (they can be misused if one isn't too familiar with them). After all, Chuck is the President of a seminary that trains you to do that very thing! If I was to recommend one Bible commentary you don't have, I would buy either the ESV Study Bible or the New Bible Commentary. The Bible Knowledge Commentary is fine if you favor Dispensational Theology, but if you don't you might find the other two resources I mentioned to be better. I would also recommend using the Text Comparison module to see how different translations render verses. I prefer the ESV or TNIV as far as English versions go.

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68929#Comment_68929

Rryrie and Evans are both good, but they come from very different theological understandings.. Ryrie is a baptist disspesationalist and Evans is a calvinist.

I use the esv... Word studies are important... You should allways look at the text in the greek. I realize you said you have not been to seminary but logos is designed to help you considerably. There is a free resource online. Feel free to look up. Dr. Bob Utley http://www.freebiblecommentary.org/.

He was a hermeneutics professor for years, and he has seminars and free material to teach you how to do exegesis. That would be a great place to start. From what I understand you are looking for his website will give you a big jump start..

There is also a set of videos that someone posted here in the forum somewhere showing how he does bible study using logos.

Hope that helps

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68952#Comment_68952

The Bible Knowledge Commentary is fine if you favor Dispensational Theology

Amen to that...[:D]

Jeremy

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68957#Comment_68957

Ryrie is a baptist disspesationalist and Evans is a calvinist.

Not to be picky, but I don't know if Tony Evans could really be considered a Calvinist, especially after he wrote "Totally Saved."

Francis

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68932#Comment_68932

Hi Tom,

You have so many resources in this collection... I started to list recommendations and realized that it would be much simpler for you to learn to use the Passage Guide in Logos 4. If you have not used it already, the Passage Guide allows you to enter the verse or verse range of study and gives you pretty much all you've got in your library grouped in similar kind of resources.

The next step would be to learn to use the Exegetical Guide and the Word Study Guide. As you use these, you will learn which resources you prefer.

Lexicons will give you access to more detailed definitions of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek words standing behind the English text of English Bibles.

Parallel passages and harmonies can be very useful. I would recommend getting to know those you have so that you can think of making use of them. For instance, it is useful to correlate the OT and NT (find which OT passages are quoted in the NT book you study or find where and how in the NT the OT book you study is quoted or alluded to).

You have theological works in your library. If you make a collection out of them, you can use the "cited by" tool to find where in that collection your passage is referred to. This can help you find theological discussions that include your passage of study. Organizing your library in collections will help your study. The cited by tool can be used with any or all of the collections. It is amazing what we can find in that way.

The other thing to remember is that you have resources that may not be listed as commentaries but can be used as commentaries and give you more to work with. This include the resources listed as biblical studies in the contents description of the leadership library on logos' website (http://www.logos.com/contents/leaders#001), many of those listed as Bible introductions and surveys (some are very broad while others are more detailed) and resources such as Wiersbe's expository outlines, the new manners and customs of the Bible and difficulties of the Bible.

Using the interlinear Bibles and the Word Study Guide is really useful to explore word usage and idioms. In addition to these, topical resources (collin's thesaurus, Zondervan Bible themes, Nave's) and cross-references (Treasury of Scriptures Knowledge) are useful to find other passage to "interpret Scripture with Scripture".

You will find all of these in your Passage Guide. I think you will find that learning to use the tools that exploit your resources is as important as learning to know your resources.

Blessings on you as you study God's Word!'

Francis

Glenn F

Apart from getting a benevolent donation the Leadership Edition will be the only one I can afford for quite some time so additional books or upgrades in Editions will not be helpful suggestions.

I'm not sure if your aware or not since you seem to be a new Logos customer, but they do have a payment plan. They will spread your payments out up to 12 months. There is a $5 administrative fee for this service. This helps pay the salary of the person who tracks and puts up with all of us who were it not for the payment plan wouldn't even have Logos. [:D][H] ME!! I am truly grateful for this service, it allowed me to start at Scholar's, then Silver and now a happy Platinum user/owner.

Blessings to you and your ministry and Welcome!

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68964#Comment_68964

Not to be picky, but I don't know if Tony Evans could really be considered a Calvinist, especially after he wrote "Totally Saved."

Tony Evans and William Evans are two totally different theologians

WILLIAM EVANS, noted American Bible teacher, was born in Liverpool, England, in 1870. Educated in the private schools of England and a graduate of Liverpool College, he came to America to continue his studies. In Chicago, he attended the Moody Bible Institute, then the Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Chicago Theological Seminary. During this extensive educational program, he accumulated a B.D., Ph.D., and D.D.
Following several years in various Presbyterian pastorates, he was appointed director of the Department of Bible of Moody Bible Institute, where he served for fifteen years. Then after three years as dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, Dr. Evans devoted his life to directing Bible conferences throughout the United States and Canada. He served in this capacity from 1918 until his death in Los Angeles in 1950 at the age of eighty.
Dr. Evans, one of the foremost Bible teachers of the nation, was the author of more than forty volumes on biblical interpretation. Besides The Great Doctrines of the Bible, he also wrote How to Prepare Sermons.

Hope that helps.. God Bless

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68974#Comment_68974

I need a two year plan for Portfolio [:'(]

Jeremy

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68976#Comment_68976

Hope that helps.. God Bless

Yep, that helps. If I am confusing Tony Evans and William Evans, it must be time for me to go to bed! You would think a person who attended Moody Bible Institute and Chicago Theological Seminary (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) would get his history right.

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68980#Comment_68980

Easy mix... They both have the same last name

God Bless.

Tom Gray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68991#Comment_68991

I would like to thank everyone for their time and input. I appreciate the fact that you all could have just skipped by my post or simply put in 2 cents and let it be, but you all chose to dig in and do a little leg work to help me (and my church obviously) out. I know that through a multitude of advisors true wisdom is usually found...at least more than is trapped inside this noggin of mine!

Everyone had excellent advice...I appreciate the reccomendation of conservative/accurate commentaries and translations to utilize and the sage advice of Francis to 'dig in and soak in the Word and find out which tools God puts on your heart to utilize' <----paraphrased.

Thanks again for your help, it really touched me to see such a large response.

Special thanks to Blair...out of curiosity are you going to CCBC in Murietta or at your home church?

Tom Gray

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/68974#Comment_68974

I'm not sure if your aware or not since you seem to be a new Logos customer, but they do have a payment plan. They will spread your payments out up to 12 months. There is a $5 administrative fee for this service. This helps pay the salary of the person who tracks and puts up with all of us who were it not for the

Blessings to you and your ministry and Welcome!

OK...I took the plunge and got the Scholars Library Edition on the payment plan. 8 months down the road and they won't have to repossess it! LOL [:D]

Thanks Glenn!

Blair Laird

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/69301#Comment_69301

Tom,

I was doing CCBC correspondence. I did my survey classes, then switch to Veritas Evangelical Seminary. Dr. Norman Geisler left his old college because they were going neo evangelical and neo orthodox. Opening themselves up to process theology and all sorts of other stuff. Long story short Joe Holden who was running the Sysyematic theology classes at CCBC got a hold of Dr Geisler and they both started Veritas. As soon as I heard, I switched from CCBC to Veritas.I take one class at time, that way I can get material from other colleges on that subject. For example you have traditional appologetics and presuppositionalism. If you take to many classes at once. You would not have time to look at both perspectives to get the balance.

The Faculty is amazing they have got a hold of the best professors in the world

Joe Holden, Norman Geisler, Randal Price, Thomas Ice, Dave Shirley, Ed Hindson, Ergun Caner, Sean Mcdowell just to name a few.

I will probably end up going back to CCBC but the faculty they have at Veritas makes me not want to leave. Both colleges are pretty solid.