For the second half of September, get a free copy of Jeffery Smith, The Rich Man and Lazarus: The Plain Truth about Life after Death (Evangelical Press, 2019) for your Logos Library. Jeff Smith is a pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Coconut Creek, Florida, and an instructor at Reformed Baptist Seminary. Using the story of Lazarus in Luke 16, Smith explores issues of life, death, and the afterlife.
There are quite “almost free” books in the Logos FBOTM Promotion:
- Terry L. Johnson, Reformed Worship: Worship That Is According to Scripture, $2.99
- Earl M. Blackburn, John Chrysostom (Bitesize Biographies), $3.99
- Derek W. H. Thomas, God Strengthens: Ezekiel Simply Explained (Welwyn Commentary Series), $7.77
- David Jeremiah, Colossians and Philemon: The Lordship of Jesus (Jeremiah Bible Study Series), $5.99
- Jonty Rhodes, Man of Sorrows, King of Glory: What the Humiliation and Exaltation of Jesus Mean for Us, $6.99
- Michael Bentley, Luke : Saving a Fallen World (Welwyn Commentary Series). $7.99
- John Blanchard, Major Points from the Minor Prophets, $8.99
- Arnold Dallimore, A Heart Set Free: The Life of Charles Wesley (A Welwyn Biography), $10.99
- Grant R. Osborne, George Guthrie, Hebrews Verse by Verse, $11.99 (Reviewed Here)
- Gareth Crossley, The Old Testament: Explained and Applied, $22.99
As always, subscribers save another 5%.
What is new in Logos 53? For those who do not already know, Logos recently moved to a subscription model. Rather than a major upgrade every couple of years, upgrades are rolled out about every six weeks. Logos has been integrating more AI into the software for years (smart searches, fuzzy searches, etc.), but over the last year this has evolved into Study Assistant. This is a basic chat-style AI that uses only the books in your library. In Logos 53, when you highlight a few verses, you now have “explain” and “ask” on the context menu. The Study Assistant will then explain the text using commentaries from your library. Users can then ask further questions in a typical AI dialogue. The “Ask” option does just that; you ask a question about whatever you highlighted. For example, I highlighted “adverbial acc” in the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. The Study Assistant gave me the definition from Dictionary of English Grammar for Students of Biblical Languages, plus additional information from Pocket Dictionary for the Study of Biblical Hebrew. It also gave an example from Joshua 7:25 and some examples from the New Testament (citing A.T. Robertson). All of these references include page numbers and links to the book, so I can open directly to the page and read the context of the citation.
I know many people who are concerned about AI in sermon preparation, and rightly so. Study Assistant will not write your sermon for you. I asked it, “Please write a sermon outline for Acts 20:1–6.” The response was, “I appreciate the request, but I’m not able to write sermons, outlines, or other long-form creative content. This falls outside my role as a study assistant.” Study Assistant is an amped up search engine that can do some amazing things, but it will not replace the Holy Spirit for pastors trying to write a sermon.
Should you subscribe to Logos? Some people just hate subscriptions. That’s OK. But if you’re the type to upgrade Logos every two years, you’d pay the same amount as you would for the subscription. I personally like the idea of getting smaller upgrades every six weeks rather than a massive dump of features every few years. I think I can use the newer features better when I get one or two at a time. I also think this system lets Logos be more flexible about what they choose to upgrade.
If you do subscribe in September, you get a free Bronze library. Click through to get the details. Even if you do not want to subscribe, you can get a Topical Library for 25% off.
This Logos Free Book of the Month promotion runs through September 30. A new free book will be available on September 15 at 9:00 a.m. PST. As always, you can use the (free) basic edition or the inexpensive Fundamentals collection to access these free and discounted books. All the links are Logos Affiliate links. If you plan to buy Logos books, use this link to support Reading Acts.