Mark WardHow many times have you heard this in a sermon? How many times have you preached this in a sermon? Faith in Greek is pistis, which means fidelity or trust. In Hebrew, the word usually translated as faith is emunah, which means steadfastness or...
Every Christmas Eve growing up, my father read the Christmas story from Luke 2 in the King James Version.
If I thought I was a pretty scintillating Bible teacher, the kind that makes people sit on the edge of their seats, the kind that is also able to put the cookies on the lower shelf and interest even kids, that thought was shattered when my own kids...
Is it dangerous to accept changes to our language? Does doing so amount to moral relativism? I once had to stand as a young man in front of an adult Sunday school class and wait for ten minutes (it felt that long, anyway) while a much older man in...
To catch all of our Logos Lives, follow us on Facebook or Twitter or subscribe on YouTube. This past week, I was at the Evangelical Theological Society annual meeting, and I had breakfast with an old friend who used to work at Logos. We had a great...
Jonathan Leeman and Vern Poythress on the theology and language of love Watch Mark Ward’s full interview with Jonathan Leeman on the theology of love. Love is the most important commandment in the Bible. And the second most important. On love for...
I sometimes hear Logos users say, with a resigned, apologetic tone, “I probably use only 5 percent of the capabilities of Logos.” People with lots of responsibility, lots of training, lots of gifting, and lots of experience in ministry or...
Why doesn't John Piper need BDAG very much?
James Strong’s 1890 Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible is one of the most frequently cited Bible study resources out there—perhaps because it is freely available in many places online. But its dictionary portion is often misused. I humbly offer...
October 9 is Pastor Appreciation Day, and the whole month is Pastor Appreciation Month—but finding creative pastor appreciation gifts can be tricky. What do you give to a person whose calling is to spend himself for others? The key to good gift...
One of the major reasons that I chose Logos over competitors, back before I had any idea I might work for the company that makes Logos, was that it gave careful attention to good design. If I’m going to spend money and years—years reading lots of...
Good writing is rare. It is also an act of love. Mark Ward, a professional writer, distills decades of experience into ten maxims.
Bible translations cause fights. As if we needed more of those in the church right now. I want to bring peace to Christian conflicts over the KJV, ESV, NIV, and other good evangelical English Bible translations—to End Bible Translation Tribalism...
One of the big guns often hauled out in Christian fights over Bible translation is the literal gun. “BLAM!” says the literal gun. Then it says in a booming voice, “TRANSLATIONS SHOULD BE LITERALLY ACCURATE, WORD-FOR-WORD!!!” And then it adds another...
I spent a significant portion of my twenties reading productivity blogs, especially those recommending the latest cool apps that promised to make my work umpteen-percent better/faster/easier. Until I realized one day that the time I was spending...
You don’t know English; you’re Russian. ЗДРАВСТВУЙТЕ (“Hello”). But you have a Kindl e-reader and you’re learning English by reading. (Imagine with me.) You make a wise choice and you pick up a classic of children’s literature, C. S. Lewis’ The...
The book of Genesis does what preachers and Sunday school teachers would do well to avoid. Indeed, it violates the first rule they teach you at Bible-teaching school: Don’t comment on the physical appearance of particular women. It’s okay for...
Do you want to know how we talk about you, Logos Bible Software users, inside the hallowed halls of Faithlife? We call you “pastors and other Bible nerds.” You are the people we love and the people we know how to serve. Which is a little selfish...
Plenty of Bible interpreters treat New Testament Greek the way my three-year-old girl treats my one-year-old boy: with well-meaning, blundering over-attention that ends up making him cry. Evangelical scholar and linguist Moisés Silva has a hilarious...
Learning New Testament Greek is a fantastic idea—and perhaps an intimidating one. I don’t want to add to the difficulty. And I also kind of do. I have a suggestion that will help you in the long run: try learning about language more generally before...
Not long ago, the Dead Sea Scrolls were locked away in places where only a select few scholars could see them. That situation actually lasted for decades. The deep end Now, you can see the scrolls for yourself with all the helps you’re accustomed to...
Confidently. That’s the answer. If you’re going to get it wrong, along with Luther I say, Sin boldly. But that’s just it: when it comes to Bible words, there are fewer pronunciation sins than you think. Now… there are some. I was just listening to a...
When Jesus is asked to sum up the law, he responds with two commands involving love: In both commands, the English translation “love” translates the Greek verb agapao. Partly because agape is one of those Greek words that many theologically literate...
Mark Ward explores what agape love means by sharing a tip for using Greek in Bible study—and then shares how to apply that tip. *** “Love” is the third most commonly looked up word at Merriam-Webster.com. Do you want to know what...
Logos is my preferred tool for sermon preparation, but history proves you don’t have to use Logos in order to teach the Bible carefully and effectively. Somehow Paul managed pretty well without it. Augustine and Chrysostom reportedly didn’t...
Does the Christmas Bible story have anything left to tell us? Biblical scholarship is essentially a lot of very careful reading of very old, very familiar stories—with the goal of discovering something new in them. The well has not run dry. After...
A while back I was working on a project, and I needed help. I was looking for insights Bible readers have gained into Scripture by comparing English Bible translations. The lone rule was that you couldn’t know Greek or Hebrew. I mentioned this...
In this “Word Nerd: Language and the Bible” video on the word Jehovah in the Bible (full transcription below), Mark Ward (author of Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible) explores why God’s name is not Jehovah—and two excellent...
Wrenching a Bible verse out of context isn’t the only bad Bible-quoting habit out there. There is a more subtle set of unfortunate customs we use in evangelical churches when we quote the Bible. Here’s an example: a relative of mine was reading to...
I regularly come across something in the Bible text that puzzles me. Today it’s a little event in John 18, one that happens when a mob brandishing swords and clubs descends on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus steps forward and asks them...