The Logos Bible Software Blog
You and I live in a modern city, but imagine that across the river is another town very different from ours: an ancient one. We drive cars, they ride animals. We chat over coffee at a cafe; they chat over water at the community well. We suffer from a divisive and polarizing political situation; they—well, they do too. Not everything has changed in the last few thousand years. But our two towns are indeed separated by a river of differences in culture, language, and history.
When you see the Bible in its ancient context, it comes to life as a body of literature that shaped God’s people. These are the people who were known first as the sons of Jacob, the people of Israel, and later as the Jewish people, and from them came Jesus and the Christian tradition. This is the true story of the whole world, of every person, and of our deep need for relationship with the God who made the universe. This is the story of how God sought to know us and love us—by sending His Son to die and rise for us, so that we may truly live.
| Mon, July 11, 2016 | Training
In a recent blog post, guest blogger Dr. Andy Naselli discussed the concept of conscience, stating that the Greek word for conscience appears 30 times in the New Testament. How can we locate those 30 occurrences and execute the examination of them as Dr. Naselli instructed? If we know one of the instances we can easily perform a lemma search straight from the Bible using the Context (right-click) menu.
| Fri, July 8, 2016 | Products
Last week, we announced a new verse-by-verse commentary series from respected biblical scholar Grant Osborne. As a culmination of his life’s ministry, Osborne is bringing his theological acumen to an accessible, application-focused commentary. The Osborne New Testament Commentaries are for people seeking a straightforward explanation of the text in its context, avoiding both oversimplification and technical complexity. Osborne brings out the riches of the New Testament, making each book accessible for pastors and all who consider themselves students of Scripture.
| Thu, July 7, 2016 | Articles
Read your Bible, pray every day, and you’ll grow, grow, grow. It’s practically the first catechism every evangelical child learns.
It’s a simple spiritual discipline, but it’s a difficult one to maintain in our busy, always-connected world. There have been times in my life when, by God’s grace, I submitted to that discipline with regularity. There have also been times at which I struggled to maintain it. “Struggle” is an evangelical euphemism for “I didn’t do it, but I never stopped feeling guilty for not doing it.”
Many Christians are faithful Bible readers, but they feel stuck when it comes to Bible study. After you’ve read a Bible passage once, and then read it again, what do you do to study it? Um, read it again? And then what?
When interpreting Scripture, it’s all too easy to impose our own ideas onto the text, rather than drawing out what the biblical author and the Holy Spirit intended to convey. Sound biblical exegesis is all about getting back to the original author’s intent so we can faithfully apply the text to our lives, and the lives of those we serve.
| Mon, July 4, 2016 | Training
At a recent Camp Logos while I was instructing about the Bible Word Study Guide, someone asked about the Translation ring which shows how a Hebrew or Greek lemma is translated in an English Bible. The question was basically this:
How can I change the Bible on which the Translation ring is based?
To answer the question let’s investigate a specific example.
| Fri, July 1, 2016 | Products
The landscape for modern biblical commentaries is heavily skewed towards a scholarly approach to Scripture. These academic treatments of the text certainly advance biblical scholarship but often overlook the practical implications of the text for the modern Christian. For Pastors, church leaders, or lay students of the Bible in particular, biblical scholarship must go hand-in-hand with biblical application.
| Wed, June 29, 2016 | Articles
My most influential mentor always told his charges that Bible teachers come to the text with one of two questions: either 1) “What can I say about this?” Or 2) “What does this say?” He saw these questions as a continental divide, and he urged us to be guided by the latter question. I completely agree.