Bible Study in the Cloud

The (very long) account of how I came to love Logos 4
by Phil Johnson



've been using Logos Bible Software for years—since the Windows 3.1 version in about 1993 or '94. It wasn't always my favorite Bible-study software (and even now I sometimes use as many as six Bible programs simultaneously when studying) but I never abandoned Logos because of the rich store of resources that were exclusive to Logos. (That includes, of course, the MacArthur Study Bible notes).

People sometimes ask how I do systematic study. I generally use Logos first, throughout the week, mainly for reading and research. At the end of the week, when I'm in the hands-on process of writing notes for a sermon, I use e-Sword. E-Sword is perfect if I just need to cut and paste Bible verses, check the Greek word for "lasciviousness," or look up something in a Bible dictionary quickly. It's free, easy to use, and much speedier than Logos or any of the other workhorse Bible programs.

But I consider Logos a must-have because of the wealth of excellent resources that have been formatted for Logos. For large-scale searches across a massive database of Bible-study material, Logos simply cannot be beat.

In 2001, when Logos released their third major upgrade—the one with the Libronix engine—I was deliriously happy with it. Its user interface was way cooler than any of its predecessors; it was more flexible and almost intuitive. That's when Logos became the software I preferred for reading, searching for obscure material, collecting hard-to obtain and out-of-print resources. I found loads of valuable Libronix-compatible books online, including a ton of Arthur Pink resources, Edwards' Works, and the complete works of John Bunyan. Great stuff.

Naturally, last November, when Logos announced the release of Logos 4, I was eager to see it.



It came at a very busy time, though, so I didn't try to install the new Logos right away. I read several reviews, all of which commented on the very long installation process. I decided not to upgrade until I could devote a full day to it. I also decided after reading the reviews that I was going to leave the older Libronix version on my computer until I was certain the advantages of Logos 4 warranted a full move away from software I liked so much.

That was a difficult decision, because all those resources take up lots of disk space. I had already heard Logos 4 couldn't use the Libronix format; it was going to reinstall all my books for me in a different format. I figured that would more than double the amount of disk space I had allocated to Logos. On my laptop that's no small matter.

For that reason, I decided when I did install Logos 4, I would install it on an external drive.

It turned out to be a good thing I waited, because when I finally did attempt to install Logos 4, the program kept crashing. It simply wouldn't install on my Windows XP virtual machines. Dan Pritchett, one of Logos's top executives, graciously offered help from the Logos technical staff when I was trying to track down the problem, but my schedule was jammed and I thought it likely that the problem was related to a configuration issue in my virtual machine. I didn't want to waste the Logos staff's time with that. Besides, I was still deliriously happy with Libronix, so there simply was no urgency to upgrade.



Then on August 4 (just a few weeks ago), Dan Pritchett e-mailed me to say he was making it possible for me to download the beta version of Logos 4 for my Mac. I jumped on the opportunity and downloaded it immediately. It installed flawlessly (though just like all the reviews had said, the process of downloading resources took several hours). It had a beautiful and informative home page that filled the screen on my 27-inch iMac. And (best of all) it gave me access to a fresh, new, more-complete-than-ever set of Spurgeon's works.

So my overall impression from the beginning was very positive. My only complaints were fairly minor: 1) it seemed just a bit sluggish; 2) it resided on the Mac side of my computer, and I do all my sermon prep in the Windows virtual machine, so switching back and forth was clunky; and 3) I couldn't find the location on my hard disk where Logos 4 put all those resources. (I don't think I ever did locate them, but after the first 10 minutes of searching, my attempts to find them were admittedly only half-hearted.)

Anyway, I liked Logos 4 enough that I thought I'd upgrade my Windows VM to Windows 7 and then try the Logos 4/Windows installation again. The switch to Windows 7 turned into a 4-week ordeal (but of course, that's not really germane to Logos, so I'll forego the details). When I finally got Windows 7 running well, one of the first things I did was try to install Logos 4 once more.

It crashed again. At exactly the same point in the installation process.

This time, however, I quickly figured out the problem. I was, of course, trying to install the Logos resources to an external drive. Even though the Logos install process offers a "custom" option where you can choose your preferred location for the program and resources, Logos 4 will not install happily anywhere except on the main hard drive. As soon as I allowed it to default to my C: drive, Logos 4 installed flawlessly.

Now I was in business, but not particularly happy about using so much of my disk space for that massive collection of Logos resources (especially since most of the same resources already existed on an external drive for the Libronix installation, and I also already had a copy of them somewhere on the Mac portion of my hard drive from the installation of Logos's Mac edition. In other words, I now had two copies of my all Logos data files on my main hard drive, and another set of the same data on an external drive. (Fortunately, I have a 2TB hard drive in my 27-inch iMac.)

I figured I would eventually default to either the Mac Version or the Windows version of Logos 4 (or else I could always revert completely to Libronix) and then I would uninstall whichever sets of data I wasn't going to use. I still liked the look of Logos 4, but one other thing puzzled me: That home page adds new information constantly. It draws all its data from an online source. You have to be connected to the Internet to use it. Logos 4 is also designed to keep all my settings, notes, and whatnot online—in "the cloud" rather than on my local drive.

I wasn't sure there was any great benefit to be derived from Logos's continuous connection to the cloud. I do a lot of study in out-of-the-way places, and I've always liked having my Bible-study software self-contained on my laptop so I can take it anywhere. I wasn't sure how much Logos relied on cloud computing, but it seemed like a lot, and I didn't see any serious advantage in that. I wondered what disadvantages I would notice when I needed to disconnect from the Internet and use Logos offline.

Then during last month's Ocean City Bible Conference, Logos expert Kendell Stellfox gave a presentation and demo on how to use Logos. He mentioned that there's an iPad/iPhone app that uses the cloud-based features of Logos 4 to maximum advantage. I don't know why I hadn't heard about the app before that; it wasn't exactly a secret; and it's even a free app! But that was literally the first I remember hearing about it.

So, sitting there during one of the sessions of the Bible conference, I downloaded the app to my iPad over the 3G network. It worked beautifully, immediately. All of my Spurgeon resources were right there, easily searchable, and (I suppose because the Logos files are well indexed) the search speed was about a thousand times faster than searching my local drive's .pdf versions of Spurgeon's works.

That opens up whole new vistas of advantages for me with Logos 4. Since I use it mainly for reading (as opposed to cutting and pasting texts), using the iPad as a reader offers some serious advantages. It's easily portable; it's a better interface for reading than a desktop or laptop screen; and all I have to do when I do need to cut and paste is use e-mail to send snippets to my desktop machine.

In short, the iPad/iPhone app alone makes Logos 4 worth the upgrade from Libronix. Meanwhile I'm learning the new desktop interface, and I'm almost as comfortable using it as I was with Libronix. If I can just learn how to move the data files for all those books to an external drive; consolidate the data files so that my Mac software and Windows software can use one set of data; and install my old Libronix .pbb files to Logos 4—then I'll be a really happy camper.

In the meantime, if you're still wondering whether the upgrade to Logos 4 is worth it, I strongly recommend it—especially if you can use the iPad/iPhone app.

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