Hey, Logos user—help us out!
We’d love to get a little feedback on how you use the software. Are there particular questions you use Logos to answer? Are there features you return to over and over again?
So, whether you’re a:
. . . we want to hear from you!
Here are some of the things we’d like to know:
No offense, Jayson, but that's an interesting list. It looks like the modern version of the good Apostle's sequences. I guess no prophets probably use Logos after the Montanists switched software.
Thanks Denise.
That list was not intended to be definitive. I'd love feedback from anyone—including prophets.
Logos is the way that I do my research (just for fun, papers, or sermons). I'm located in a small town and Biblical resources are scarce. Logos helps to fuel my fire while keeping me grounded.
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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
I primarily use Logos as I serve in the following roles - being director of a Christian camp, an elder at our Church, preaching in church, leading Bible studies and for in-depth research for publications. Here is a breakdown of how I use it.
DevotionsI use Logos every day for my devotions, reading the Scriptures through in different versions each year and reading the New Testament through in Greek each year. My Hebrew is not as good so I use an interlinear. I also choose different devotional books to read each day
Language StudyI studied Greek and Hebrew in seminary but Logos has revived my ability to continue use and develop my skills. I use the grammars for review and reference and make good use of vocabulary cards. I also purchased a set of learn to read Latin books and am working my way through them.
In-Depth ResearchI love to study the Scriptures and make good use of all the tools in Logos to do that. Sometimes it is to prepare for studies but many times it is just to continue my learning.
Reading EnjoymentI have a list of 500 specific books that I want to read in my library that I have categorized and I try to read at least 1-2 books each week that I can.
PortabilityOf course all of this is enhanced by portability. I am very thankful to Logos which has allowed me to replace much of my paper library with digital books. In the past when I went on trips I had to choose a few books that I could take with me but now I have access to my entire library as I travel. I've been on a speaking tour overseas for over a month now and use Logos every day. It really is an amazing blessing.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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
Jayson,
I cannot stay by the way side and say no-thing. The Lord has blessed me in the ministry of prophet, but also a teacher and preacher.I use Logos very much, it is my study tool that covers everything I can ask of it. I use it for about four hours daily after work. Sometimes I have to do some yard work and then back to the Word of God in Logos. I do lots of studying and meditation everyday in Logos. Prophets can be scholars too. In fact, Logos has been my scholarly tool for a teacher, preacher and prophet's ministry. I love the tool and I believe the Lord is glorified in this tool.
But let me say this to you. Several weeks ago, my wife came to me astonished because she was at work and then the Spirit spoke in her heart that she should learn LOGOS! Imagine that. Can you imagine that??? The Lord told my wife to learn LOGOS.
My wife did not want to learn Logos because the interface seems to be intimidating to her. But now, she will learn it. I don't know if you guys at LOGOS know this but the Lord is glorified in your product. I'm sure you do know!
Jayson, I do have some questions, but I'll ask them in another email. Oh yes, I've been using Logos for 20 years.
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.
Running on ASUS Windows 10 I7 24 gig of ram, 1 Terabyte drive.
Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
Well, Al Sosa (and apologies to Jason for off-ish topic), but good luck to your wife!! It's intimidating only for a few minutes; then it's lots of fun!
(Plus I never expected the forum to have prophets; that's great!)
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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"
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.
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
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
Hello Jayson,
I've written before, but now I am going to respond to your questions with some answers but I also have some other questions that you might be able to help.
1. Logos helps me fill the role of teacher, preacher, researcher, prophet and just simply the hunger I have for knowledge of God's word. I am a life-time student of the Word. Logos is my partner in study and the Lord my Wisdom, Vision, by His Spirit who guides in me in all Truth and my Reason for all.
2. Tasks: Research a word. Pronouncing a Greek word. (Waiting for the Hebrew tool for pronouncing); Reading about 10 books, comparing texts, doing deep researching like currently "Eternal Generation"; creating a layout for every chapter in the Bible, that's about 1189 layouts that I will create in the next year; researching the church fathers, historical development of the church doctrines, hearing the Word read to me (you have time??). . .; more and more.
3. Favorite feature: Difficult question to answer. . . I love everything . . . what can I tell you.
4. Particular feedback: Yes.
I hope, pray that one day I can do a research of my few thousand books and find out what layouts are attached to each book. In the same line of thought, I desire to see how many books are in each layout. Why? This way, I can see which books are being used most in my studies.
Again: Search books for layouts. Search layouts for books. Make sense?Next: Being able to open more than 'one' layout at the same time by using tabs.Another: Having the ability to see logically the relationship of my layouts with each book so that I can catalogue or manage my topics and being able to do sub-topics within one layout. OK, let me explain. Having the ability to have one layout have several sub-layouts. Example: Layout Name: History. Sub-layout Name: Rome; Greece; Israel, etc. Make sense??Finally, but not final: Getting a more robust word processor in the note feature.
There is more. . . but tomorrow is coming. . .
Be blessed. . .
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. . .
Ken Adair, Husband of Shana..
I am currently in my first year in school almost 40 years old study to serve God in a ministry best suited for my skills. Even to become a pastor. Being my freshman year i feel that i am now SET in a word or two for a proper and protective mode of writing in college about the aspects of biblical teaching. I find it most interesting Logos is next to my town of where i grew up Ferndale, WA. Just thought was unique. Thanks for the support.
Denise: (Plus I never expected the forum to have prophets; that's great!)
Things turn up where you least expect them, Denise.
Does Logos help you fill a specific role? (e.g., pastor, student, professor, etc.)
I have taken graduate coursework in New Testament Greek (and will soon be entering a doctoral program related to linguistics), and originally purchased Logos for sentence diagramming and the original language tools (cross-linked lexical and morphological resources, etc.).
What tasks do you do you count on Logos to help you with in your study?
I primarily use Logos for studying the Bible in its original languages, but I also enjoy the reading lists and simply using it for reading/studying resources in my library.
Do you have a favorite feature?
I like the reading lists and that I can check them as I read the books and see what resources I can purchase to find other resources. I need to learn how to make my own reading list but haven't had time yet.
Do you have particular feedback you’d like to pass along?
My biggest concern with the release of Logos v5 is the syntax tagging. This tool has evolved to the level of practically being a source of information, and at times it makes controversial assertions without notifying the user of alternative interpretive options. As more and more connections and interpretive tools are created, more and more subjectivity is involved. A great example of this can be seen in the Logos 5 exegetical guide’s syntax tagging for ‘Jesus’ in Romans 3:26. The morphology is of course correct ('Jesus' is in the genitive case), but the syntax tagging tool takes the extra interpretive license to say that this particular word is in the subjective genitive (which is a highly debated interpretive position, the tool appears to be following Wallace's GGBB:ESNT).
In other words, the syntax tagging is telling me that the ESV has incorrectly translated Romans 3:26 as “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” According to the syntax tagging, this passage should be translated as “This was also to demonstrate his righteousness in the present time, so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who lives because of Jesus’ faithfulness.” That’s a big difference, and a hotly debated interpretive solution. Obviously one’s knowledge of the original languages comes into play here to agree or disagree with the interpretive decision made, but for a weaker language student there is no indication that there is even another option here. Good commentaries and other tools can tip the student, but I think the syntax tagging should at least indicate that there is some disagreement in circumstances such as these.
Granted, while all of these syntactic categories are merely translational categories, their appearance beside morphological information may confuse beginning language students into taking them for granted. My fear is that as more tools that involve a high degree of subjectivity are developed like this one, and as more seminaries cease teaching biblical languages but rather teach students how to rely on tools such as Logos, tools like this will dictate how texts are translated and cause a generation of ministry leaders to take folks like Daniel Wallace's interpretive decisions as 'givens' without realizing that these categories are highly subjective and debated.
So enough griping, what am I hoping for? I'm hoping that this information can be presented differently so that its subjective nature is clearer. Just as lexical information appears beside the resource from which it is derived (e.g. BDAG, Louw-Nida, etc.), so also should syntactic translational categories (e.g. "Wallace: subjective genitive").
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.
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Jayson Bradley: Here are some of the things we’d like to know: Does Logos help you fill a specific role? (e.g., pastor, student, professor, etc.) What tasks do you do you count on Logos to help you with in your study? Do you have a favorite feature? Do you have particular feedback you’d like to pass along?
1. Yes. Logos is a huge help to me as a pastor.
2. I use Logos for sermon and Bible study prep. The ability to quickly do word studies, search/find related Scriptures, have multiple copies of my preferred Bible, plus copies of other Bibles open to the passage I'm studying, having commentaries open automatically to the passage I'm studying, or quickly open to the right place in the commentary, searching multiple commentaries quickly and easily, having right-click access to Bible dictionaries & encyclopedias, to quickly find information about Biblical places or people (also through the right-click menu), are some of the features I use almost without thinking anymore.
As I prepare messages (sermons), I often refer to homiletical commentaries, or the sermons of Spurgeon, Piper, Keller, and others. Another really helpful set of resources are English language dictionaries and a Thesaurus to help me find just the right word for what I'm trying to say.
As I go through the text and make discoveries, it's fairly easy to create a note so that the next time I'm studying the passage I'll remember what I found out.
EDIT: Logos is also a huge help when someone asks me (their pastor) one of those hard to answer questions. I can quickly search my library for potential answers, narrow down the issues, search the Scriptures and come back with a good (or at least intelligent sounding) answer.
3. It would be hard to identify a favorite feature as I use so many features so regularly. But I think my favorite isn't necessarily that 'fancy,' it's the ability to have several Bibles open and following each other all the time. For instance, right now I have the NIV84, NIV2011, NRSV, NLT, The Message and Logos' own Lexham English Bible all synced together. This makes it easy to check for translation issues, alternate ways of saying the same thing, and suggests ways to teach the text, simply by looking at other English translations.
My next favorite feature would be Biblical Places and Biblical People. Especially since visiting Israel, I want to know how long a journey was between place "A" and place "B," or where such-and-such a town is. It's also helpful at times to review who someone is, quickly find a Bible dictionary article, a resource that provides the meaning of their name, or see where they fit in their family and genealogy.
4. Feedback: All these features come at a cost: time. One needs a pretty fast computer to not encounter lags from time to time. Attention to program speed becomes more important the more one is invested in this program. Even so, Logos still saves me hours of work, so waiting a few seconds from time to time doesn't seem like much of a trade-off.
Help links: WIKI; Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)
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.
How blessed is the one whom Thou dost choose, and bring near to Thee. (Psa 65:4a)
As a pastor, Logos helps me to start sermons, the do exegesis of the text, word study, places, timeline.
As a professor, most of my textbooks are in logos library, and I am using in the class room to project over the screed directly from Logos. Also, teaching Greek and Hebrew, the language tools cut my work in half. My Hebrew textbook is in the logos library, so it is very easy for me and my students to be on the same page.
Dr. Cocar