Clayton KrabyRecently I was given an extended trial of the new Logos Cloud Bible study software. If you’re not familiar with Logos Cloud, it’s a new subscription-based service that brings advanced Bible study tools and an integrated, digital library for in-depth Bible study.
Logos Cloud will enrich your daily devotions, provide answers to your questions about the Bible, help you understand meanings of passages and words in Scripture, and learn about biblical people, places, and events.
Although I have only been using Logos Cloud for about a month, it has already become one of my most valuable resources in preparing sermons, writing, and personal Bible study.
Many people are familiar with Logos Bible Software, but after having looked into it found that it was well outside of their price range. With Logos cloud, you get access to the resources of Logos 6, but through a subscription-based package–think Netflix, but for studying your Bible.
The Essentials package of Logo Cloud is $8.99month, which is comparable to what many people are paying for Netflix, Hulu, or similar entertainment services.
This helps to make the software easier to fit into your budget. In fact, the Essentials package of Logo Cloud is $8.99month, which is comparable to what many people are paying for Netflix, Hulu, or similar entertainment services.
How much more value is there to getting deeper into God’s Word than in watching re-runs of Seinfeld?
Logos Cloud is available for Mac, PC, and as a powerful app for Apple and Android devices. Your resources, notes, highlights, and other information automatically syncs between all of your devices and you’ll always have the most up-to-date software.
My Logos Cloud Review
The timing was such that I was able to start using Logos Cloud while preparing for a sermon on John 15:1-8. As you might expect, it is absolutely packed with resources to aid in the study of Scripture. It seemed that each time I logged in I was able to navigate to yet another vast section of relevant content.
Thanks to the powerful search capabilities, all of the commentaries, cross-references, Greek and Hebrew resources, links to sermon audio, relevant quotes, maps, an enormous library of digital books, and much more are easily accessible.
For example, If you were to search for John 15 or for a keyword such as “abide,” you will quickly have an incredible amount of related material which you can look through. This is perhaps one of the only times that I would be tempted to use the word “plethora” in a conversation.
Here’s a screenshot of just part of the results in my search on John 15:1-8:
Though it can be overwhelming at first, the information that comes up from a keyword or Scripture search is broken down into their respective categories, and the lists can easily be maximized when needed and minimized when they aren’t.
All of the various windows can be moved and organized as you see fit, and I am sure that after a while I will make some changes to better suit my needs. For now, I have been sticking with the default setup and moving the resource I am most interested in at the time to a ‘floating window’ so I can view if full screen.
Though I have yet to pull much off of the digital bookshelf, there are thousands of books available through the Logos Cloud library. You can either make use of this library by searching for a particular topic or passage, or simply read through any that are of particular interest. You can use Logos Cloud much like you would any other digital reader, and it is especially easy to use when downloading a book to your tablet.
Additionally, any digital books that you add to your Logos Library are completely indexed and searchable. So with every book you add, the tool becomes even more powerful, as your searches can look for any related material in every book in your account. Plus, Faithlife regularly offers free books that you can grab and add to your library.
I personally don’t think I could give up on physical books, but the tools available through Logos Cloud have scored a lot of points for digital reading
Those who do begin using Logos regularly will be faced with one of the most difficult choices a book lover can make: do you want to build up a digital library or continue building a physical library of “real” books. I personally don’t think I could give up on physical books, but the tools available through Logos Cloud have scored a lot of points for digital reading.
For now, I think I will make use of the current library that came standard with my Logos Cloud package and snap up any freebies that I find along the way.
A Note to Seminary Students
As a seminary student pursuing my M.Div., I have been blown away by how helpful Logos Cloud is going to be–and I haven’t even had it during a semester yet!
Here are a few tips that will be most relevant to my fellow seminarians:
First, get this. Whether it’s the traditional Logos software or Logos Cloud, just get access to it as early as you can. I am in my second year and wish that I would have had access to this sooner. You will likely need to purchase Logos for your Greek and / or Hebrew class anyhow, so you might as well get it early on in your seminary career. I went through three semesters of Greek without it, and am confident that these would have been much easier with this tool
Second, each new semester look through your digital library before your purchase your textbooks. You may have access to them already, you might be able to add them for just a few bucks as compared to a physical book, and you will save valuable shelf-space when you need to purchase large reference books (plus you’ll get way more use out of them).
Conclusion
The tools and information accessible through Logos Cloud would be valuable for every believer that wants to get more out of studying Scripture. If you are a pastor, Christian educator, Bible study leader, or seminary student I would recommend it even more strongly.
After using the software for just a couple of months I have already found it to be an invaluable tool for my studies.
There is free 30-day trial a Logos Cloud available if you’d like to check it out for yourself. I’d strongly recommend that you give it a month to see how it can take you deeper into the Word of God.
