Using AI Tools for Smarter Bible Study

Print Friendly and PDF

Even if you are experienced in studying the Bible, and experienced in using Logos tools and capabilities to enhance that, have you wondered whether the AI Tools in Logos can augment and extend what you are able to do? Maybe to find some additional insight or to discover books in your library that have something significant to say about the passage you are studying?

In this article, we'll work through an example, centered around 1 John 1, to see some of the added value that Logos AI Tools can bring to Bible Study.

As always, the place to start is in the biblical text to try and understand what it is saying. And to help with that, Logos provides the ability to summarize either the entire book or the chapter you are studying.

Note: This feature is available in all subscription tiers.

 

 

To access this, open the Tools tab, click the Summarize button, specify that you want to summarize the entire book and click the Summarize button.

Summarizing A Book

 

Take a note of the salient points – such as the importance of walking in the light, loving each other and understanding the love of God towards us. Then select the option to summarize another article.

Summarize Another Article

 

Select the option to summarize 1 John and click the Summarize button. This focuses the summary onto just this chapter and highlights some of the key points. Again there is the emphasis on the light of God and, in the text, this is contrasted with darkness. Summary Of 1 John 1

 

So it could be very interesting so see where light and darkness appear together in the Bible and what they signify. A standard Bible search easily finds verses where both words are present and it can be very informative to study these to understand what they are saying and what insight, if any, they provide on the chapter being studied.

Bible Search For Darkness And Light

 

But an AI-assisted search can expose some of the significance in these contrasting terms. I'll do this using an All Search with the search string where are the themes of light and darkness contrasted in the Bible?

The Synopsis of the search results provides a lot of useful insights including some of the ways in which these concepts were understood. And the links to the articles contributing to the synopsis make it easy to read the articles themselves for more detail.

All Search Smart Synopsis

 

You can scroll down further in the search panel to see individual search results. And there is the option to see a quick summary of the results, even for books you don't own.

Summarize A Search Result

 

This particular article explores how these contrasting themes are understood in Psalm 18, and how they are used to speak about God and the interaction between the psalmist and his enemies.

Summary Of A Search Result

 

The Factbook card provides links to Factbook articles that examine the underlying concept in more detail.

Factbook Article On Darkness

 

While the All search accesses the entire Logos catalog and a range of underlying information, if you want to constrain your search to just books you own, or even a subset of those books, you can do this by switching to a Books search. This search mode has the ability to switch between Precise and Smart searching and you need to select the one you want from the dropdown. And I've selected a Collection based on the works of Augustine as the set of books to search in.

Specify Smart Books Search

 

Running this search returns a similar set of results, but constrained to books in the specified collection - which provides real insights into this author's views on the topic.

Smart Books Search On A Collection

 

 

Play

To access this, open the panel menu of your Bible and select Summarize

Mobile - Select Summarize Tool Mobile - Summarize Pane

Specify that you want to summarize the entire book and click the Summarize button.

Mobile - Summarize Book Mobile - Book Summary

Take a note of the salient points – such as the importance of walking in the light, loving each other and understanding the love of God towards us. Then, close the summary, open the Summarize pane again and summarize the chapter you are studying.

Mobile - Summarize Chapter

This focuses the summary onto just this chapter and highlights some of the key points. Again there is the emphasis on the light of God and, in the text, this is contrasted with darkness.

Mobile - Chapter Summary Mobile - Light And Darkness

So it could be very interesting so see where light and darkness appear together in the Bible and what they signify.

A standard Bible search easily finds verses where both words are present and it can be very informative to study these to understand what they are saying and what insight, if any, they provide on the chapter being studied. But an AI-assisted search can expose some of the significance in these contrasting terms. I'll do this using an All Search with the search string where are the themes of light and darkness contrasted in the Bible?

Mobile Bible Search For Darkness And Light Mobile All Search For Darkness And Light

The Synopsis of the search results provides a lot of useful insights including some of the ways in which these concepts were understood.

Mobile Synopsis Part 1 Mobile Synopsis Part 2

And the links to the articles contributing to the synopsis make it easy to read the articles themselves for more detail.

Mobile Synopsis Select Linked Article Mobile Synopsis Linked Article

You can scroll down further in the search panel to see individual search results. And there is the option to see a quick summary of the results, even for books you don't own. (Tap a search result, to see the summarize option).

Mobile - Summarize Locked Article Mobile - Summary Of Locked Article

The Factbook card provides links to Factbook articles that examine the underlying concept in more detail.

Mobile Search Factbook Link Mobile Search Factbook Article

 

While the All search accesses the entire Logos catalog and a range of underlying information, if you want to constrain your search to just books you own, or even a subset of those books, you can do this by switching to a Books search. Here I've selected a Collection based on the works of Augustine as the set of books to search in. And I've also specified I want to carry out a Smart search as opposed to a Precise one - you get the option to toggle this by tapping the currently selected option. 

Mobile - Switch To Book Search Mobile - Select Smart Search

Running this search returns a similar set of results, but constrained to books in the specified collection - which provides real insights into this author's views on the topic.

Mobile - Books Search Synopsis Mobile - Books Search Results

 

 

So using AI-enabled tools can very quickly provide powerful and useful insights into ideas or concepts that appear in the passage you are studying.

Was this article helpful?
Suggest an improvement or request a feature