Logos 6 review

I'd mentioned over Christmas vacation that I'd taken the plunge and bought Logos 6 bible software. I'd been watching it since Logos version 3, and the reviews were so good that when an updated version #6 came out, I took the plunge.

Coincidentally a week or two later, pastor and blogger Tim Challies reviewed Logos 6 because he also decided to commit to it. In his concise way, he wrote about it from a pastor's perspective and I recommend his review here, if you are at all interested in learning more. He said in one paragraph I particularly liked,
The greatest strength of Logos is its wider system. What a Logos book offers that a printed book does not is integration into that system. When you add a new book to your Logos library, you increase the power and usefulness of the entire system, because that book now links to and from every other book. It is less like adding a printed book to a bookcase and more like adding a new Christian with his spiritual gifts to your congregation—it improves and strengthens the entire system.

He also said that it doesn't do the work for you. Having the software system won't make you read the bible more. It won't get you to pray more. It is just a tool. He's right.

As for me, I'm a layperson. For me it's great. I love it. I enjoy the automatic reading plan. I plug in what book I want to read and at what pace, and the software organizes it for me, marking where I left off and where I need to begin. It also lets me know when I'm behind, lol. I always seem to be behind.

I get lost in the photographs of the Earthly Footsteps of the Man of Galilee, a 120 year old tome containing photos from the late 1890s. I enjoy looking at what Israel used to look like back then and push my mind back a bit farther to imagine those scenes in Jesus' day.

The books I can read or refer to, the plants of the bible, animals of the bible, dictionaries, pronunciation guides, maps, even videos., are all stellar. I have a wealth of material even though I'd bought the lowest base package. It is plenty for me, really.

The commentaries are especially helpful. I am falling in love with Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary of the Whole Bible. I have access to the Concise Commentary online but the Complete Commentary deepens the background and elicits so much from the verse I can barely stop reading.

Something else I like is the home page. Excerpts of various books or essays are posted. Today there is one explaining salt and light, being missional, survivor's guilt, bond servant of Jesus Christ, Context Matters: Dr. John Walton Explains Why, and Perseverance, among many other items, including explaining some of the great art of the biblical scenes, and Logos promotions (they are unabashed about it).

One thing that Brannon Howse said in one of his programs on World View Weekend, when he was discussing his purchase of Logos 6 and why he liked it, is the Art of the Day. He was very excited about the home page daily verse put to art. I didn't understand his enthusiasm for it until I purchased Logos 6 and began seeing the amazing creative work the Logos artists do in putting abstract theology to visual art. Here is today's example. It is the verse noting Enoch's rapture.

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It was an expensive purchase but worth it.


Comments

  1. Thanks for the review. I was hoping you would do one. I went to the Logos website and I thought it was sort of weird how they had software for every persuasion of interpretation......."charismatic" "Lutheran" etc. Did you get the standard or reformed?
    ~Jennifer

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    1. Thanks Jennifer,. Yes I know it's weird, all the "flavors." I got the standard starter, it's a base package, run of the mill regular. The cheapest. And it's still more than I can handle. Happily.

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