Mark WardTo 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.
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...
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...
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...
Every Christmas Eve growing up, my father read the Christmas story from Luke 2 in the King James Version.
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...
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...
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...
In this “Word Nerd: Language and the Bible” video (full transcription below), Mark Ward (author of Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible) explores the origin of the word “Lord” in the English language—a word that, of course, shows...
Some time ago my wife and I visited a church we’d never been to before and heard a message about Old Testament promises, specifically from one paragraph in Joshua 1. Take particular note of the promises because the preacher did: This Book of the Law...
Oh man. They give me these topics sometimes. I’m supposed to make responsible Bible word studies “easy.” Next week: Middle East Peace Negotiations for Beginners. But no—we can do this. We can. Because the key word is “responsible,” and that mainly...
Learning how to write a funeral sermon is inevitable—if you are a preacher of the Word, you will one day have to preach a funeral. And that one day might be Tuesday. Even if you’ve heard a lecture in class on how to prepare for a funeral, it’s...
Learning biblical Greek will require some drudgery. But, as they say, “No pain, no reading the Greek New Testament.” I well remember sitting at my desk in grad school, cramming vocabulary into my head like a duck willingly stuffing its body for foie...
I was just having lunch with some pastors, and we were having a friendly disagreement over exegesis. One experienced expositor said, “The Holy Spirit chose precisely this word and not another, so it must have special significance.” I said, “Yes, but...
I love writing for sharp readers; they keep me on my toes. Once, in my post “The Easy Way to Do a Responsible Bible Word Study,” after studying the word hilasterion, one of them presented me with a challenge: Can we do a high-quality Bible word...