As a guy who teaches, preaches and offers pastoral services several hours a day with students and adults, both Christians and atheists and everything in-between, I am constantly referring to books and resources. I have spent plenty of time carrying books and have bought several Bibles with various combinations of features trying to anticipate every off-the-wall inquiry and obscure question. With the purchase of an iPad, the field of options became wide open. Now, I need not pick a translation or set of features in a text. Rather, I choose an app and I have at my fingertips any number of books and features. However, there are a glut of Bible apps to choose from and I have found that a lot of the reviews are not written by guys who use the apps on the fly while they teach. So, I have decided to undertake reviewing Bible apps as I use them.
I will be starting with my goto app: Logos Bible Software. Now, I’ll admit that I don’t use the free version of this app, so I have a lot more resources than would come with the free version. However, that having been said, there are quite a few books available in the free version. This includes several versions of the Bible and a plethora of other books and materials. Mine has several commentary sets, including the New International Commentary series and the Pulpit Commentary series.
The app itself has several features that let you interact with the library in different ways.
-You can select books and read them straight.
-You can search key words through your whole library, specific resources or recent resources. This also allows you to search the Bible separately or with the entire library.
-The program does word studies, examining the frequency and usage of the word you select. This feature also researches the history and meaning of the word.
-Passage studies can also be done by entering the verse you are considering. This feature will provide you with parallel passages, cross references, topical connections, literary typing, interesting words, commentaries, art, etc.
-The app also does parallel translations.
The good: This app is powerful and intuitive. The resources are easily searched and managed. The extremely large number of resources offers a wide variety of options for study. I have found the Greek interlinear Bible particularly useful. You can read the Greek with the English and tapping on the Greek words produces resources that analyze the them, giving you a broad spectrum of information. You can also purchase specific books and collections for your iPad without the purchase of a larger package. Navigation through resources is a bit of a mixed bag. Within resources moving is pretty easy, but with recent updates moving from one resource to another is less easy. Moving between search screens, on the other hand, is intuitive and easy. You simply swipe your finger down to bring up the search options and select the one you want. The iPhone version of the software is quite convenient and overcomes many of the weaknesses in searching, because ideally your iPhone should always be online.
The bad: There are a few issues with the app. The app is best used online. Without the Internet, most of the search features are disabled. You can still reference old searches, but nothing new is available. In addition, resources are kept online. So, you need to download books in order to use them, though downloading is pretty easy. I’ve also found that the passage search can be a bit glitchy. Sometimes it gets confused when you leave the search screen and return. Otherwise, I have have no complaints.
Summary: For a free app, this is the best of the best, assuming you have an easily available wi-fi signal. It’s handily the most resource heavy Bible app I have used. It’s more powerful with the Logos Desktop software because you get more resources. The base package starts at $149 and the top of the line runs $4200. However, you can purchase books for your iPad, so it’s not really necessary to buy the desktop program. Particularly since it’s pricey software. Still, for a free app, the test-drive should be a no brainer. This app has become my standard research tool, though the limited ability offline has kept it from becoming my go to Bible app when I am away from a wifi signal.
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