5. Study a Word in Logos

Note: Available to all subscriptions and in the former Starter Feature Set and above.

In the previous article, you learned how to highlight and take notes on the biblical text. As part of that process, you’ve likely identified words that you’d like to dig into a little further to gain a deeper understanding of the Scriptures.

In this article, you’ll learn about a helpful tool to identify repeated words in the original language (even if you don’t know any Greek or Hebrew), how to use the Bible Study Guide (Logos’ primary tool for word study), as well as one way to use Logos to guide you through studying a word.

Highlight Repeated Words

If you’re familiar with Bible study, you know that repetition is a key signal for what is important in a biblical passage or book. Repeated words can hammer home a point, reinforce the structure of a text, and more. With Logos, you can identify repeated words with a click (literally) when using the Corresponding words feature. With this enabled, anytime you click (or hover over) a word, Logos will highlight other occurrences of that word in your resource. And it can do this not only for English words but for underlying original language words as well. Here’s how to use it:

1. Open your Bible to a passage you want to study.
2. Click the Formatting tab.
3. Select Emphasize. 
4. Check the box beside Corresponding words.

Expand the Corresponding words section and check the boxes below to customize what it matches against. Checking Same lemma tells Logos to highlight each time the original language lemma appears in the passage. Checking Same root highlights every time words from the same root (like “righteous,” “righteousness”) appear.

Bible Word Study Guide

The Bible Word Study Guide presents a lot of information about a word drawing on Logos tagging and relevant resources in your library. One of the simplest ways to run the Guide, is to right-click a word:

• select the Selection item (top of the left side of the menu) if you want to run the Guide against the translated word
• select the Lemma  option (indicated by the icon) is selected if you want to run the Guide against the original language word

Then click Bible Word Study in the right pane.

The Bible Word study guide is made up of individual sections. These sections focus on a specific aspect of the word you’re studying, or a specific category of resources that have bearing on your word. 

Open the Bible Word Study in Logos

Some of the key sections are:

1. Lemma: This section displays basic dictionary information about a word. Click the title of a lexicon to open it to the entry for your word
2. Translation: This section displays a translation ring showing the different ways the Greek word you’re studying is translated by the version you’re using. Click a section of the ring to see a list of all of the passages where that translation occurs
3. Senses: The senses section displays a ring showing all of the different senses your selected word can communicate in different contexts. Click a sense to see all of the verses where it carries that sense.
4. Lemma in Passage: The Lemma in Passage guide section searches through your commentaries for their references to your word.

There are many more sections in the Bible Word Study Guide. Learn more about using the Bible Word Study Guide.

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