Archives for January 2015

Get a Free Devotional with Your BSM Subscription

Katie Monsma | Fri, January 9, 2015 | Products, Promotions

For a limited time, subscribe to Bible Study Magazine and get a free devotional!

Bible Study Magazine brings you insights that help you dig into the Word. And for a limited time, when you subscribe to BSM, you can get the newly released devotional Moment with God: A Devotional on Every Biblical Book (a $9.95 value) for free.

Simply add these two resources to your cart, and the devotional’s price will automatically update to $0.00.

Get them both now!

The latest in biblical scholarship

Bible Study Magazine is one of the best print publications for Bible study. Six times a year, you’ll get rich content to help you uncover greater meaning from Scripture. BSM also delivers powerful Bible study methods from respected scholars and church leaders straight to your doorstep.

Through January 23, you can subscribe to Bible Study Magazine for just $19.95—that’s more than 33% off the retail price—plus get Moment with God for free.

Devotions for every book in the Bible

Moment with God is loaded with content that will challenge you and help you grow. This devotional offers 66 entries—one for each book of the Bible—to help you discover new biblical insights. Moment with God brings practical application to God’s Word and provides encouragement along the way.

John Barry, one of the editors for Moment with God, shares his personal journey and the inspiration that led him to this project:

For years, I lacked a devotional life. I believed that as a professional Bible scholar I was getting plenty out of the Bible already, but I was mistaken. It took a three-week trip to India—where I was separated from my cell phone and surrounded by incredible believers in Jesus—to see how much I needed God every morning.

Moment with God will help you find spiritual footing and seek God no matter what book of the Bible you’re studying.

Subscribe today!

Don’t pass up this deal—this offer is only available through January 23.

Act now to get great content from Bible Study Magazine, plus a free copy of Moment with God: A Devotional on Every Biblical Book!

Round Out Your Logos Library with This Renowned Series

Jonathan J. Watson | Thu, January 8, 2015 | Products, Promotions

It’s a new year, and there’s never been a better time to dive into Scripture. This month’s top product, the Continental Commentary Series, provides you with in-depth commentary over some of the most difficult books of Scripture, including several multivolume works. And in the Logos format, these 19 volumes are available to you wherever you are.

Add the Continental Commentary Series to your Logos library and save up to $250.00 when you get it now!

This critical series is respected for its French and German scholarship, made accessible through English translation. It even includes Claus Westermann’s three-volume work on Genesis. First published in 1974, this remarkable set addresses many of issues still wrestled with today.

Here’s an excerpt in which Westermann succinctly identifies the unique composition of Genesis 1:

Gen 1 contains a fusion of poetry and prose that is unique in the Old Testament. This is to be explained from the pre-history of Gen 1, especially from the union of what have been called the command-account and the action-account. While the latter is simply report or narrative, the former takes on something of a poetic form because of the constantly recurring phrases. The sentence that concludes each day of creation divides the whole as it were into strophes, and the individual sentences of the account of creation by the word have a definite rhythmic stamp.

The rest of the series similarly reflects a precision and focus to draw attention to important textual details. For example, each volume includes historical and cultural considerations, with attention to textual tradition, secondary literature, and lengthy commentary.

And with Dynamic Pricing, you’ll never pay twice for a volume you already own—if you already have any of these volumes in your Logos library, just sign in to see your custom discount.

This deal is only available through January: save over 40% today and get this respected series for only $349.99!

Last Chance: Spurgeon Commentary Collection

Jake Mailhot | Wed, January 7, 2015 | Products

Due to an unfortunate production delay, the Spurgeon Commentary Collection: New Testament Letters is scheduled to ship January 15. But our production delay is to your benefit: you have just a few more days left to enjoy Pre-Pub pricing on this amazing collection.

That means you can get all nine volumes for over 40% off!

With this collection, you’ll benefit from Charles Spurgeon’s wisdom, passage by passage. Application focused, with illustrations culled from his sermons and writings, these commentaries will help you understand, apply, and preach the Bible.

A glowing recommendation

Phil Johnson, the curator of The Spurgeon Archive, wrote the foreward to the Spurgeon Commentary series. Here’s an excerpt from his thoughts on Spurgeon and this groundbreaking resource:

[Spurgeon] could hardly say three sentences without including a phrase, a reference, or an allusion to Scripture. Whenever he spoke, no matter the topic or the venue (even when he was delivering a “lecture” to an academic audience), there was an abundance of Scripture in the message. His daily conversation was saturated with Bibline. Nearly any talk he ever gave would likely exceed some of today’s “expository” sermons for sheer biblical content.

Elliot Ritzema has created a remarkable and eminently useful resource by culling Spurgeon’s expository comments, combining them with key explanatory sections drawn from Spurgeon’s sermons, cataloguing and organizing them by chapter and verse, and giving us this wonderful commentary from the Prince of Preachers.

Why didn’t someone do this long ago? This is an invaluable reference work, made all the more useful by its compatibility with Logos Bible Software. I can’t imagine preparing a sermon without checking to see what Spurgeon might have said about my passage. The Spurgeon Commentary Series has simplified that step. When the series is complete, it will surely be the Logos resource I turn to most often.

—Phil Johnson, curator, The Spurgeon Archive

Order today!

Charles Spurgeon was a truly gifted orator and author. The Spurgeon Commentary Collection is designed for functionality, usability, and readability to make Spurgeon’s writing easier than ever to understand and apply.

These nine volumes are shipping January 15, and they’re over 40% off on Pre-Pub until then—pre-order the Spurgeon Commentary Collection: New Testament Letters before it’s too late!

Why You Should Go for Gold: Get Top Resources at a Great Price

Sherri Huleatt | Wed, January 7, 2015 | Products

Get our highest-rated base package at the best price.

Logos 6 Gold is the lowest-level base package to offer all of Logos 6’s new tools, datasets, and media, plus it comes with an incredible library of more than 1,000 resources.

Gold is regularly $1,549.95, but you can save over $230.00 with the Logos 6 introductory discount. Plus, you can get a special discount based on the resources you already own.

Take 15% off Logos 6 Gold today!

Access resources worth more than $16,000

If purchased separately, Gold’s 1,022 resources would cost $16,301.92. But with a base package, you can get all of them for just $1,317.46—that’s almost a $15,000.00 savings!

In fact, just three of the resources in Gold more than cover the cost of the entire package.

Here’s how it breaks down:

These three resources alone total $1,524.85, but you can get the entire Gold base package for almost $200.00 less. Pretty sweet deal, right?

On top of these three resources, you’ll get other essential titles, including:

UBS Handbook Series Old Testament & Apocrypha (35 vols.): $314.95
Black’s New Testament Commentary (BNTC) (13 vols.): $249.95
The Complete Spurgeon Sermon Collection (63 vols.): $249.95
Themelios 1–37 (1975–2012) (111 issues): $209.95
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) (10 vols.): $199.95

On their own, these are some of the best theological resources available, but they’re even more powerful with Logos 6. That’s because every volume includes sophisticated data tagging that connects information across your library with human-like intelligence. Instead of studying each resource as an isolated text, you can connect cultural concepts in the Bible to your favorite dictionaries, jump from citation to source with a click, get relevant original-language data, and more.

Logos 6 makes your resources come alive. The more resources you have, the more connections Logos 6 makes between them, and the more powerful your library becomes.

Get more from your study with Logos 6 Gold’s incredible theological library: take 15% off Logos 6 today!

Get the complete set of Logos 6 tools

sheree-on-computer-300x300 Logos 6 Gold is the most affordable base package that offers all of Logos 6’s tools, datasets, Media Collections, and Interactive Media.

Easily discover and share media with Visual Copy and Media Search, find answers fast with Everything Search and Factbook, study Scripture in context with Atlas and Cultural Concepts, visualize the biblical world with Interactive Media, and do smarter original-language study with Inline Search and the enhanced Bible Word Study tool.

Gold offers a considerable step up from Silver, the next lowest base package.

Unlike Silver, Gold includes:

Textual Variants: Seamlessly explore textual differences across ancient manuscripts. This new tool brings together all the resources you need for textual-variant study: get textual commentaries, compare primary texts with modern Bible editions, study original manuscripts, and view scanned photos of original Bible texts.
Atlas (all three volumes): Connect Bible narratives to their geographical context. Browse dozens of new maps, created by a professional cartographer, that offer powerful functionality—including zoom and panning options.
Psalms Explorer: Reveal the poetic structure of each line in the Psalms. Group the Psalms by genre, book, author, or theme and expose the parallel structure of the Hebrew text.
Proverbs Explorer: Filter Proverbs by people, form, theme, or topic. Browse topics that interest you, then sort the Proverbs that address that topic for easy skimming.
Sense Section: Discover all the alternate meanings of Greek and Hebrew words, as well as where they occur in Scripture.

Reveal powerful insights with the complete set of Logos 6 tools and a massive, interconnected library: get 15% off Logos 6 Gold now!

C.S. Lewis Is Coming to Logos!

Daniel Motley | Tue, January 6, 2015 | Products

For the first time ever, some of C.S. Lewis’ best works are coming to Logos.

Covering a lifetime of writing, this 30-volume collection contains Lewis’ signature classics (Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, A Grief Observed, The Great Divorce, The Weight of Glory, and The Abolition of Man) along with The Space Trilogy, his complete collection of letters, and devotional works that gather together the best of C.S. Lewis.

Currently, we’re offering this collection for the Pre-Pub price of $279.97—30% off the regular price!

Be sure to take advantage of this introductory offer today!

Lewis’ influential legacy

C.S. Lewis has had an incalculable influence on Christianity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. John Piper, in a lecture on the impact of Lewis in his own life, says, “Lewis gave me, and continues to give me, an intense sense of the astonishing ‘realness’ of things. He had the ability to see and feel what most of us see and do not see.” Commenting on Lewis’ death in 1963, J.R.R. Tolkien remarked, “So far I have felt the normal feelings of a man of my age—like an old tree that is losing all its leaves one by one: this feels like an axe-blow near the roots.”

Lewis was born to Irish parents on November 29, 1898. His early childhood obsession with fairy tales would go on to influence his most famous work, The Chronicles of Narnia. During his adolescence, Lewis rejected the idea of God as silly and without proof. Entering Oxford University in 1916, Lewis left the following year to serve as a soldier in World War I. He was injured soon after and was sent back to England where he resumed his studies at Oxford. After graduation, he joined the faculty of English literature at Oxford, where he befriended the unknown Anglo-Saxon scholar J.R.R. Tolkien.

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His struggle with Christianity would come to a head in 1931 when, after a discussion with his friends Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, Lewis accepted the Christian faith after a visit to the zoo. From that point on, Lewis spent the rest of his life discussing and defending Christianity from modern ideas such as relativism and materialism. Near the end of his life, he penned his most enduring work, The Chronicles of Narnia, a children’s tale about the land of Narnia and its protector, the lion Aslan. He went on to marry Joy Gresham, who passed away in 1960. Lewis followed her in death on November 22, 1963, the same day as the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Add classic, enduring works to your library

This collection contains a variety of works from Lewis’ long writing career. His Christian works provide critiques of secular ideas, like materialism, as well as defenses of Christian doctrine, like the actuality of miracles. Mere Christianity, one of his most popular works, presents two of Lewis’ influential apologetic arguments for Christianity: the “trilemma” argument and the argument from universal morality. The Screwtape Letters is written from the perspective of a lead demon teaching his nephew how to lead humans to hell. And Miracles is Lewis’ argument for the presence of supernatural intervention in the natural world.

This collection also includes his three-volume science-fiction epic, The Space Trilogy, which follows the escapades of Dr. Ransom as he travels the solar system fighting the forces of evil. Although more popularly known for his fiction and Christian nonfiction writings, Lewis published many works of literary criticism on works by medieval poets, Paradise Lost, Norse mythology, and more, which are featured here.

Lewis’ collected letters are considered a goldmine of information regarding the progression of his thought during his lifetime. With the Logos edition of his letters, you’ll be able to perform searches based on the recipient of the letter and the date it was written. For instance, if you wanted to read every letter written to Tolkien during the 1950s, simply input these parameters and Logos retrieves all of Lewis’ relevant letters. For the Lewis scholar or enthusiast, Logos makes Lewis’ works more accessible than ever.

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This collection has been on the wish list of many users for quite a while, and we are proud to finally offer this collection in our format. During the introductory Pre-Pub period, this collection is on sale for only $297.97—30% off the regular price!

Don’t wait—lock in the best price on the C.S. Lewis Collection today!

Learning Hebrew with Logos Bible Software

Pam Bauthues | Tue, January 6, 2015 | Biblical Languages, Products

Today’s guest post is from Rich Penix. Penix recently completed a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. He currently serves on the ministry staff at Eden Baptist Church in Burnsville, Minnesota.

When I first considered learning Hebrew online, I had my doubts. I was worried about the lack of classroom accountability and personal encouragement from fellow students. However, after hearing glowing reports from fellow seminary students about Dr. Mark Futato’s Logos-integrated approach to learning Hebrew, I decided to take the plunge.

After completing three semesters of Hebrew through a Logos-integrated approach, I’m sold.

Here’s why: I was shown how to use Hebrew with the instrument in hand that I plan to use for regular teaching and preaching in the years to come.

The challenge of bridging the gap

Dr. Mark Futato is the Robert L. Maclellan Professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida. After years of observing students struggle to maintain their knowledge of Hebrew, Dr. Futato decided to create a teaching model that incorporates Hebrew learning within the context of Logos Bible Software. It is the intent in this review to both encourage teachers to creatively and strategically utilize Bible software into their teaching and for students to take such courses that recognize the enduring benefits of Bible software.

Many graduate from seminary with little resolve to maintain their knowledge of biblical Hebrew. One of the factors that contributes to such an attitude is the lack of clarity on how to bridge the gap between memorizing rules of Hebrew grammar and the joys of meaningful exegesis.

Imagine if your child took music lessons, but was only taught music theory. Wouldn’t it seem strange if your child rarely, if ever, touched the musical instrument with which he should use such knowledge? The same applies to learning a language. How much more effective is Hebrew when learned with the proper instrument in hand? Learning biblical Hebrew through Logos Bible Software helps bridge that gap.

Integrating coursework with Logos

In Dr. Futato’s own words, he states:

My Logos-integrated Hebrew courses are primarily geared toward training students in such a way that they will continually use their knowledge of Hebrew and technology throughout their ministries. By incorporating Logos into approximately half of the course, my desire is to equip students to be more precise and profound in the exegesis of the Old Testament, through a knowledge of basic Hebrew grammar and Logos software.

The course begins with a walk-through of how to organize one’s Logos library. Preferred Bible translations, Bible dictionaries, and Hebrew lexicons are organized in precisely the manner prescribed by the professor, so exegetical assignments may be completed in an organized, uniform manner.

Like any Hebrew course, there are regular quizzes and exams testing the student’s understanding of Hebrew grammar and vocabulary. However, a large percentage of the final grade is determined through weekly workbooks that record the student’s answers to exegetical questions that must be ascertained through one’s ever-growing dexterity with Logos Bible Software. Workbooks are graded upon the student’s ability to perform basic operations in Logos, such as morphological searches, syntactical searches, searching the semantic range of a word and other Hebrew word studies. Students are not simply asked to complete a given task in Logos, but to defend why they have made certain exegetical conclusions from the biblical data. This exercise in critical thinking serves the student well as they interact with the Hebrew text.

With an emphasis toward the faithful application of Hebrew, each student is asked to read and comment on the following works:

How Biblical Languages Work: A Student’s Guide to Learning Hebrew and Greek by Peter J. Silzer and Thomas J. Finley
From Exegesis to Exposition by Robert B. Chisholm
Calvin and the Biblical Languages by John D. Currid

These works were enjoyable to read and provided helpful direction toward the ongoing use of Hebrew in the future.

The benefits of Logos-integrated learning

In summary, I wholeheartedly recommend learning Hebrew through Logos. As a result of studying Hebrew through this model, I instinctively gravitate toward using Logos to search Hebrew words and research syntactical questions in the same manner I was taught. By having a trusted Bible scholar walk me through how to use Logos, I was immediately shown how to practically use Hebrew for precise exegesis. This guidance was a tremendous gift.

If you are a seminary student, I’d encourage you to consider fulfilling your Hebrew requirements through a Logos-integrated approach. Chances are you will likely use some form of Bible software down the road for teaching or sermon prep. Whether you take one of Dr. Futato’s courses through the Global Campus of Reformed Theological Seminary or a similarly constructed course, I’d encourage you to capitalize on a method that teaches the essentials of the language alongside the essentials of Bible software—it’s a win-win!

* * *

To begin studying Hebrew with Dr. Futato, check out his guide to learning biblical Hebrew.

Limited Time Only: 65% Off Vyrso Bundles!

Brian Williams | Tue, January 6, 2015 | Products, Promotions

If you missed any of Vyrso’s 24-hour deals throughout December, we have great news: all 24 Days of Vyrso bundles are live!

Take 65% off titles by John C. Maxwell, Max Lucado, Gene Getz, Charles Stanley, Charles R. Swindoll, and others!

Whether you are looking for a great deal on your favorite Vyrso author or a way to stick to your New Year’s resolution—like creating the habit of an improved ministry, daily devotion, or more intentional marriage—we have a bundle for you!

But don’t wait—all bundles expire Friday, January 9 at 11:59 p.m. (EST).

You can choose from 28 bundles; here are a few of our favorites:

The Men of Character Bundle (day 15)

Regularly $119.88—get it for $41.99

This 12-ebook bundle by Gene Getz examines role models of the Old and New Testaments in situations relevant to modern times. You’ll get ebooks on Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, Elijah, Daniel, Nehemiah, and the Apostles.

Download all 12 for just $41.99—a savings of $77.89!

Teamwork Bundle (day 25)

Regularly $67.92—get it for $23.99

Get eight of John C. Maxwell’s most definitive works on teamwork and relationships. Most of us have been on a team in some capacity, and to make an impact we need to develop relationships and build others up. When you download this bundle, you’ll get Winning with People, Teamwork 101, How to Influence People, Relationships 101, The 17 Essential Qualities of a Team Player, The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, Teamwork Makes the Dream Work, and Team.

Get this bundle for just $23.99—that’s 65% off the regular price!

Charles R. Swindoll Bundle (day 25)

Regularly $45.95—get it for $15.99

This formative five-ebook bundle by Charles R. Swindoll includes titles on parenting, marriage, and hope. You’ll get Encouragement for Life, Marriage, A Life Well Lived Bible Companion, Hope Again, and Parenting—all for just $15.99, a 65% savings!

The Shepherd Press Counseling Bundle (day 19)

Regularly $37.81—get it for $11.99

The Shepherd Press Counseling Bundle is filled with small booklets aimed at helping you equip, encourage, and counsel those around you. Whether it is an ebook for yourself or one that might help you answer questions for a friend, this bundle is a helpful companion for dealing with the struggles of life. Reference ebooks on debt, cancer, depression, terminal illness, and many other difficult topics.

Get this bundle for just $11.99—a savings of $25.82!

The John MacArthur Jr. Bundle (day 11)

Regularly $40.97—get it for $13.99

Learn from John MacArthur Jr. with three ebooks for just $13.99! You’ll get Our Awesome God, The Keys to Spiritual Growth, and Truth Endures—all with MacArthur’s in-depth focus on unpacking Scripture.You won’t want to miss out on savings of over 65%!

And don’t forget to check out all the other bundles:

There isn’t much time left to get huge discounts on all 24 Days of Vyrso bundles: all deals expire Friday, January 9 at 11:59 p.m. (EST).

Dot-to-Dot Puzzles, the Hierarchy of Understanding, and Logos 6

Chris duMond | Mon, January 5, 2015 | Products

Logos 6: delivering insight

When we were deciding how to talk about Logos 6, we landed on the tagline “delivering insight.” We were very intentional with this message, which came out of conversations we were having about how one gains understanding in their field of study, then how they communicate that understanding to their audience.

We found that Logos users were looking for much more than just data, information, or knowledge; they were truly seeking wisdom.

In the Hierarchy of Understanding model, one moves from data to information, from information to knowledge, and finally from knowledge to wisdom.

Insight is the bridge between knowledge and wisdom

Remember when you were a kid and you did “dot-to-dot” puzzles? You know the ones I’m talking about. You would draw lines from dot to dot, and when you were done, it made a picture.

Insight is a lot like that. Insight happens when you connect all the dots and reveal something that was previously hidden or just not obvious. Insight is the “Aha!” moment of discovery when, after careful exploration and observation, you come to a new truth or realization that you’ve never had before.

However, there’s a real problem, which is that insight isn’t obvious. It’s elusive, hard to come by and frankly, pretty rare.

Insight comes when you connect the dots. But what do you do when you don’t have access to all the dots? When it comes to study of the Scripture and the ancient world, that question becomes even more complex: how do you connect the dots when the dots are dispersed over a few millennia of history, buried in books, logged in archaeological records, hidden in ancient manuscripts, and written in foreign languages?

Logos 6 is the ultimate “dot connector”

Built on a unique platform with hand‐tagged, fully interconnected biblical resources that are full of “dots,” Logos 6 is able to find and connect those dots with lightning speed and deliver insight by revealing truths that were previously hidden.

Logos 6 sets the stage for those elusive “Aha!” moments of insight, helping you bridge the gap from knowledge to wisdom.

Find out which base package will help you connect the dots you need to deliver insight!

Want to talk to someone about all your dot‐connecting options, including payment plans? Give us a call at 888-875-9491.

Logos 6: Find New Testament Quotes from Old Testament Prophets

Morris Proctor | Mon, January 5, 2015 | Logos Training

Today’s post is from Morris Proctor, certified and authorized trainer for Logos Bible Software. Morris, who has trained thousands of Logos users at his two-day Camp Logos seminars, provides many training materials.

New Testament writers frequently quote Old Testament prophets without explicitly referencing them by name. “Who said that?” may, therefore, be a common question we ask in our Bible study. You’ll be happy to know that Logos tags speakers throughout Scripture so we can readily identify them as well as locate other verses in which they were quoted! Let’s take a look at a specific example:

Open a Bible such as the LEB to Acts 7:48–49, which is part of Stephen’s sermon (A)
Notice the phrase “just as the prophet says” in verse 48 followed by the words of a prophet in verse 49 (B)
At the beginning of verse 49, rest the cursor on the megaphone icon (C), which identifies Isaiah as the quoted prophet (if the icon is not present, click the visual filters icon—three circles—on the Bible’s toolbar and select speaker labels) (D)

Logos has identified and tagged the speakers in conversation or being quoted in both the Old and New Testaments. You can see who’s speaking with the megaphone icon.

But now let’s say we want to locate all the places Isaiah is quoted in the New Testament:

Right click on any word in verse 49 (E)
Click the arrow icon next to Stephen the speaker on the context menu (F)
Notice both Stephen and Isaiah are listed as speakers, because Stephen is quoting Isaiah
Select Isaiah (G)
Select Search this resource (H)

Select New Testament from the drop-down list on the search panel (I)
In the search results, see all the places in the New Testament where Isaiah the prophet is quoted (J)

Train your eyes to spot the megaphone icons, then use a right mouse search to find every time a specific person spoke in the Bible.

You can learn more about Logos 6’s features in the Logos 6: What’s New? Manual and the Logos 6: What’s New? Video, now available on Pre-Pub.

Also be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including the January events in Tampa and Houston.

15 Essential Resources for 2015

Jonathan J. Watson | Sat, January 3, 2015 | Products, Promotions

january-2015-monthly-sale We’ve got new deals for the new year! With over 170 products on sale, chances are good you’ll save on something from your wish list. But just in case, we’d like to showcase 15 products to help you ring in the new year.