Morris Proctor

Logos 6: Study Bibles in the Passage Guide

Morris Proctor | Mon, February 23, 2015 | Training 2

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.

A fellow Logos user recently presented me with this scenario:

I’m a big fan of the commentaries section in the Passage Guide. I noticed that my study Bibles are included in the section. Is there an easy way to list my study Bibles separately from the commentaries?

The answer is yes! In fact, it can be accomplished with a couple of different methods. What follows is one simple way to achieve what they want.

First, create a collection of study Bibles:

Choose Tools | Collections
Name the collection Study Bibles (A)
Place this in the rule box: type:“Bible Notes” (Logos groups study Bibles and a few miscellaneous resources in the Type called Bible Notes) (B)
Drag any resources you wish to exclude from this collection from the Resulting Collection list to the Minus these resources section (C)

Close the Collections panel

Next, generate a Passage Guide report:

Choose Guides | Passage Guide
Type a reference in the box, like John 1:1 (D)

Press the Enter key to generate the report

Now, select Study Bibles in the Commentaries section:

Rest the cursor on the commentaries section title bar (E)
Click the Settings link that appears to the right (F)

Select Study Bibles from the drop-down list (G)

Notice only study Bibles now appear in the list! (H)

With this method, selecting Study Bibles from the Settings list is necessary for each Passage Guide report. You can, however, create a custom template on the Guides menu to permanently add the Study Bibles section to it.

For more in-depth discussion about all the Bible study guides as well as custom templates, place your pre-order for the new Logos 6 Training Manual: Volumes 1 and 2.

And for live, hands-on training, be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including events in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Columbus, Georgia (Atlanta area).

Logos 6: Create Quick Collections to Improve Searching

Morris Proctor | Mon, February 16, 2015 | Training 6

At Camp Logos, I often tell students that the challenge with Logos is not too little information, but too much information. For example, managing the results coming at us when we search all of our resources at once can be a steep hill to climb.

One secret to effective searching is creating multiple collections (user-created groupings of books used primarily for searching) and then only searching one collection at a time. At Camp Logos, I’ll encourage you to create two major types of collections:

Subject-matter collections, like history books or theology books
Author collections, like Tozer books or Piper books

By proactively creating these collections and searching only one at a time, you’ll retrieve information in more manageable portions.

Let’s imagine, however, that we forgot to create a collection, but we find ourselves in the midst of study only wanting to examine ethics books or resources written by Alfred Edersheim. In times like these, we can utilize quick collections in Logos 6.

For example, let’s imagine we’re studying sanctification in 1 Corinthians 1:30:

Open a Bible, like the ESV, to 1 Corinthians 1:30 (A)
Right click the word sanctification (B)
Select from the context menu the English word sanctification (C)
Select Search all resources (D)

Notice that the search panel opens with thousands of hits, which is overwhelming (E). We then decide we just want to search ethics books, but we haven’t previously created that collection.

So try this:

Click the resources-to-search drop-down list, which currently says All Resources (F)

Type this simple collection rule in the Find box: subject:ethics (G)
Select the line indicating the number of resources matching the rule (H)

Notice that Logos automatically searches just those resources, which produces fewer hits (I)
Click the resources-to-search drop-down list again (J)

Type this collection rule in the Find box: author:edersheim (K)
Select the line indicating the number of resources matching the rule (L)

Notice again that Logos automatically searches just those resources (M)

All of the rules we employ to create official collections on the Tools menu work here in the Find box to create quick collections! These quick collections are temporary and are no substitute for official collections, but they can be very helpful to streamline searching on the fly.

For thorough instructions on using all of Logos 6′s tools, place your pre-order for the Logos 6 Training Manual: Volumes 1 & 2.

And for live, hands-on training, be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including events in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Columbus, Georgia (Atlanta area).

Logos 6: Display Parallel Passages from the Gospels

Morris Proctor | Mon, February 9, 2015 | Training 8

I remember years ago preparing a sermon on Jesus’ Gethsemane prayer. During my study, I discovered that all four Gospel writers spoke of this event.

Since at the time I didn’t own a harmony of the Gospels (a book presenting in parallel columns the same event from various gospels) here’s what I did. I started off turning the pages in my Bible back and forth from Matthew to Mark to Luke to John and then back to Matthew. After a few paper cuts, I devised a better plan. I photocopied the Gethsemane verses from each Gospel and taped them together side by side. I made my own harmony!

That homemade harmony severed its purpose for that message, but thankfully today in Logos 6 there’s a much improved method—the Parallel Gospel Reader.

Here’s one way to use it:

Select the tools menu (A)
Click All interactive resources (B)

Click Parallel Gospel Reader (this interactive resource is only available in Logos 6 Gold and higher) (C)

Select a Bible, such as the English Standard Version, from the drop-down list (this Bible will be used to display the verses) (D)
Select a harmony from the drop-down list, such as A Harmony of the Gospels by A.T. Robertson (E)
Notice the table of contents displaying events in the life of Jesus (F)

Jump to the Gethsemane prayer using either of these methods:
- Scroll to section 152 (G), or
- Type a reference from the event, such as John 18:1, in the reference box (H) and press the Enter key

Click the section title to display the verses (I)
Notice the accounts of the same event from different Gospel writers

I encourage you to carefully read the various accounts of Jesus’ prayer in the garden several times. As you do, you’ll see that Matthew, Mark, and Luke each present different details about the agonizing prayer. Matthew uses words like troubled, very sorrowful even unto death, and fell on his face. Mark adds greatly distressed and Abba. Luke writes knelt down, angel from heaven strengthening him, and his sweat became like great drops of blood. All three refer to this cup.

By comparing and contrasting these various accounts, you’ll discover this agonizing prayer was not a brief, easy time of reelection as is often portrayed; this was a spiritual wrestling match!

So as you’re studying the Gospels, forget the paper and tape, but don’t forget this helpful interactive resource that quickly displays parallel passages from various harmonies of the Gospels.

For more detailed information about working with interactive resources, as well as the rest of Logos 6′s new tools, check out these new Logos 6 training materials:

And for live, hands-on training, be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including events in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Columbus, Georgia (Atlanta area).

Logos 6: Instantly Create High-Quality Slides

Morris Proctor | Mon, January 26, 2015 | Training 5

Years ago in a Christian education class in college, my professor commented, “If overhead projectors were available during the time of Christ, he would have used one.” His point was that Jesus incorporated visuals in his teaching. Think about just a few examples:

“Consider the lilies of the field . . .” —Matthew 6:28
“Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have? . . .” —Luke 20:24
“I am the vine; you are the branches. . . .” —John 15:5

A well-placed image can communicate volumes. As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Today during our preaching and teaching sessions we employ visual media slides and projectors to enhance a message.

Knowing the popularity of such visuals, Logos 6 offers a tool that makes fast work of creating slides based on text or images from our Logos resources or even just text we input manually! This tool, Visual Copy, prepares slides suitable for use in Proclaim Church Presentation Software or PowerPoint, or even as standalone graphics.

Try this:

Open any Bible to Joshua 1:8 (A)
Right click any word within the verse (B)
Select from the context menu Joshua 1:8 (C)
Select Visual Copy (D)

Notice the Visual Copy tool opens with Joshua 1:8 already placed on a slide (E)
Select, if desired, a different template from the left sidebar (F)
Select an aspect ratio (G)
Select:
- Copy to place the image on the clipboard, which will then be ready to paste into a document (H)
- Save as to save the slide as an image file (I)
- Send to to export it to Proclaim or PowerPoint (J)
- An icon to share it (K)

You’ll also discover that Visual Copy appears on the context menu from within any resource. For example, right click some selected text in a resource, then select Visual Copy from the context menu to create a slide with the text you just selected!

For more detailed information about working with Visual Copy, as well as the rest of Logos 6′s new tools, check out these new Logos 6 training materials:

Also be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including events in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Columbus, Georgia.

Logos 6: Locate Verses for a Character Study

Morris Proctor | Mon, January 19, 2015 | Training 4

A character study is a very rewarding type of Bible study. A character study is finding all mentions of a person in the Bible and then examining the characteristics of his or her life.

The challenge to this method of research is locating all biblical references to a person! That challenge just got easier with Logos 6. Let’s imagine we want to investigate Barnabas throughout the New Testament. Our research begins with listing of all mentions of the man. Try this:

Open a Bible, like the ESV
Navigate to a passage of Scripture which mentions the man Barnabas, such as Acts 4:36 (A)
Right click on a word referring to Barnabas, such as Joseph—his real name (B)
Select from the content menu Barnabas Person (C)
Select a search option, such as Search this resource (inline) (D)

Notice only the verses referencing Barnabas now appear in the resource panel (E)

As you move through the Inline Search hits, you’ll see that Barnabas is not only referred to by name, but also as good man, apostle, companion, and more.

We have just combined the referent dataset with a right-click Inline Search to quickly locate all the times a person is mentioned in the Bible. A thorough examination of these verses will now yield some encouraging insights about this man of God in the early church!

For more detailed information about working with Inline Search, as well as the rest of Logos 6′s new tools, check out these new Logos 6 training materials:

Also be sure to register for an upcoming Camp Logos live training seminar, including events in Houston, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Columbus, Georgia.

Logos 6: How to Search the Atlas

Morris Proctor | Mon, January 12, 2015 | Training 3

Knowing the geographical context in which a biblical event took place can certainly aid our interpretation. For example:

What’s the significance of the phrase “he had to pass through Samaria” in John 4:4?
Does the location of Laodicea impact Jesus’ description of the church as “lukewarm” in Revelation 3:16?

To assist us in discovering the geographical context of a biblical passage, Logos 6 offers a brand new Atlas tool with scores of new maps. These new maps are tagged according to both biblical references and topics (biblical people, places, things, and events). The multiple tags on a map are why links to maps appear all throughout the software, such as in the Passage Guide (A), in the Topic Guide (B), and in the Factbook (C).

You can also, however, manually search the Atlas yourself for just the right map. Try this:

Choose Tools | Atlas
Make sure the left sidebar is visible by clicking the map list icon (D)
Remove any text that is in the search box in the sidebar (E)

Type a query in the search box, such as:
- A biblical reference, like John 4 (F)
- A person, like Jesus
- A place, like Jerusalem
- A thing, like temple
- An event, like feeds 5,000
Select the desired item from the drop-down list (G)

Notice maps corresponding to the query appear in the list (H)
Select a map to load it in the display area (I)

You can now use all the features of the Atlas tool to work with your desired map!

For more detailed information about working with the Atlas, as well as the rest of Logos 6′s new tools, check out these new Logos 6 training materials:

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

Logos 6: Find New Testament Quotes from Old Testament Prophets

Morris Proctor | Mon, January 5, 2015 | Training 15

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.

Logos 6: See and Read Only Highlighted Text

Morris Proctor | Mon, December 29, 2014 | Training 12

If you’re like me, while reading a print book, you like marking up important points. Likewise, for years we’ve been able to highlight text in our Logos resources. Now, in Logos 6, we can go one step further. We can actually extract, view, and read just those highlights we’ve made in a book!

Here’s how:

Open a resource, such as Alone with God
Choose Tools | Highlighting
Expand a palette such as highlighter pens (A)
Select some text in the resource (B)
Click a style, such as green highlighter (C)

Continue highlighting text as you desire
Open another resource, such as Moral Foundations of Life
Highlight text in this resource as well (D)

By default, when we use styles in the highlighter-pens palette, Logos creates a notes document called Highlighter Pens.

Open the notes document by choosing the documents menu
Click the Highlighter Pens file to open it
Select Quotes as the view in which to display the notes (E)
Notice the names of the resources in which text was highlighted (F)
Click the arrow to the left of a resource to reveal all of the text that was highlighted in that specific resource (G)

As you can see, by utilizing the highlighting and quotes views, you can in essence produce a personal summary, comprising what you deem important of any resource in your library.

You can learn more about Logos 6 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.

Logos 6: Tag Your Own Resources

Morris Proctor | Mon, December 22, 2014 | Training 3

The Logos team has tagged the words of Scripture referring to people, places, and things. This referent dataset then allows us to locate every mention of a specific person, place, or thing regardless of the words used to reference them. For example, we can locate all the places in the Bible Timothy is mentioned, whether he’s referred to by name, with a pronoun, or though a term like disciple or man.

We have thousands of other words in books, though, which reference people, places, and things. These words, however, are not tagged. The best we can do is search for entities by name like Paul, Corinth, or shield. That is until now!

Through the power of a new Logos 6 tool called Community Tags, users can tag words in resources according to the people, places, and things they reference.

For example:

Open the resource Alone with God to page 56 (A)
Select (highlight) the phrase his name in the first paragraph (B)

Right click the selection (C)
Select his name from the context menu (D)
Select Add community tag (E)

Type David in the Add community tag box that appears (F)
Select the person David from the drop-down list (G)

Notice that underneath his name, Logos places a dotted gray line representing a community tag (H)
Rest the cursor on the line to see a rich preview of David (I)

Logos will also synchronize this tag to the accounts of other Logos users so they’ll benefit from your tagging.

So what’s the benefit of Community Tags? The ability to search them!

Try this:

Right click the tagged text his name (J)
Select David Person from the context menu (K)
Select Search community tags (L)

Notice in the search results, all the resources with community tags referencing David, including Alone with God (K)! We’re now locating people, places, and things in our books—not just our Bibles.

You can learn more about Community Tags in the Logos 6: What’s New? Manual.

Also, be sure to register for our in-depth Camp Logos in Tampa and Houston.

Logos 6: Study a Topic with the Sense Section

Morris Proctor | Mon, December 15, 2014 | Training 6

As the celebration of our Lord’s birth approaches, let’s imagine we want to execute a topical study on angels, who appeared frequently during the early pages of the Gospels. A significant part of this topical study can originate with the new Logos 6 Sense Section found in the Bible Word Study tool. (Please note that not all base packages include this feature.)

Let’s walk through a practical example of using this helpful tool:

Open a Bible, such as the ESV, to Luke 2:8, which begins the pericope of an angel visiting the shepherds (A)
Right click the word angel in verse 9 (B)
Select the lemma ἄγγελος‚ angelos (C)
Select Bible Word Study (D)

Navigate to the Sense Section, which houses the senses ring (E)
Notice the lemma in the center of the ring and the two senses (or meanings) of this word, angel and messenger, as assigned in the Biblical Word Senses dataset (F)
Observe the listing of the same two meanings (G) underneath the ring (H)
Here’s how to read the different sets of numbers:
- The numbers to the immediate right of a meaning represent the number of times that meaning occurs in relationship to the total number of occurrences of the lemma (H). For example, ἄγγελος‚ angelos occurs 175 times in the ESV New Testament and 164 times it has the sense angel.
- The numbers to the far right of a meaning represent the number of times that lemma occurs with that meaning in relationship to the total number of occurrences of that meaning throughout Scripture (I)

For example, ἄγγελος, angelos with the sense messenger occurs seven times in the Bible, but the meaning messenger occurs 92 times, which means in the other 85 occurrences other Hebrew and/or Greek lemmas have the meaning messenger
Click the arrow to the left of a meaning like messenger (J) to reveal:
- An expanded explanation of the sense (K)
- The verses where the lemma ἄγγελος‚ angelos has the meaning messenger (L)
- Other lemmas tagged with the same sense messenger (M)
Click a lemma in the expanded section to generate a Bible Word Study report for that specific Hebrew or Greek word (N)

By generating and studying Bible Word Study reports for the various Hebrew and Greek lemmas translated angel, you’ll be well on your way to a biblical understanding of the subject angels! Of course, you can perform the same type of study for any topic you like, such as worship, joy, or grace.

For complete written instructions on all the new Logos 6 features, check out the Logos 6: What’s New? Manual or attend our in-depth Camp Logos in Tampa and Houston.

Logos 6: Study Bibles in the Passage Guide

Logos 6: Create Quick Collections to Improve Searching

Logos 6: Display Parallel Passages from the Gospels

Logos 6: Instantly Create High-Quality Slides

Logos 6: Locate Verses for a Character Study

Logos 6: How to Search the Atlas

Logos 6: Find New Testament Quotes from Old Testament Prophets

Logos 6: See and Read Only Highlighted Text

Logos 6: Tag Your Own Resources

Logos 6: Study a Topic with the Sense Section

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