Logos provided additional research resources and a complimentary year of Logos Max in exchange for my sharing my experience. This article also contains an affiliate link.
In 2009, I arrived at theological college to begin training for the priesthood, clutching a timetable that was, frankly, rather intimidating. It was packed with lectures on subjects I had barely heard of, let alone considered studying. I had always taken the Bible seriously, but studying theology at degree level was something altogether different, and to be honest I wasn’t really sure what I had let myself in for.
Then there were the books.
Every vicar’s study I had ever visited seemed to contain enormous bookcases filled with impressive-looking scholarly volumes. I had always found them impressive, but if I’m being completely truthful, they also made me uncomfortable. I came from a working-class background in the countryside, and somewhere along the way I had absorbed the idea that people like me, the non-academic types, didn’t really belong in this sort of world.
Yet here I was, surrounded by books, preparing to become one of those vicars myself.
I felt very out of place.
My first year was difficult. There were lectures, assignments, essays and reading lists that seemed to grow every time I looked at them. I wanted to understand Scripture properly, but I approached college with a straightforward expectation. I had questions, and I assumed the books would provide answers.
What I hadn’t appreciated was that one question could apparently generate an entire shelf of books written by people who didn’t agree with one another.
When reading became an obstacle
During that first year, I discovered that I was profoundly dyslexic.
Suddenly, some of the difficulties I’d experienced throughout my education began to make sense. It wasn’t simply that I found academic writing intimidating or that I wasn’t working hard enough. The way my brain processed written information made studying much harder.
I could sit with a commentary, carefully work my way through several pages, and then discover that I had completely forgotten what I’d just read. Sometimes only minutes had passed. I would then have to go back, read the same section again and try desperately to hold on to the argument long enough to make use of it.
This became particularly frustrating when I needed to write an essay. I might spend hours searching for something relevant, only to find that I couldn’t remember where I’d read it, who had written it or even what the argument had actually been.
The college was supportive and introduced various forms of assistance, which I appreciated enormously. But I still needed to read, research and make sense of information that seemed determined to disappear from my memory almost as quickly as it arrived.
Then somebody introduced me to the wonderful world of Bible software.
A library that worked differently
The software was called Logos, and I began using it around 2011.
For anyone unfamiliar with it, Logos Bible Software is essentially a digital library and research platform designed around biblical study. Rather than having to locate individual books on shelves, you can bring together Bibles, commentaries, theological dictionaries, historical resources and other reference materials within one application.
That certainly saved me from having to find room for all those books, but it wasn’t what made the greatest difference to me.
I could change the appearance of the text.
I could adjust the font size, alter the background colours and make the page easier for my brain to process. I could highlight passages, save notes, search for information and copy references directly into the essays I was writing.
These might sound like small conveniences, particularly now that we’re accustomed to doing almost everything on computers. But for me, they were enormously important. Instead of spending so much energy managing the mechanics of reading and remembering, I could concentrate on what the books were saying.
I didn’t suddenly become an effortless student. I still had dyslexia, and some of the difficulties remained. But I’d found a way of working that suited me rather better than sitting behind a growing pile of books, hoping that enough information would eventually stick for me to pass.
And something unexpected happened.
I started enjoying the research.
When the questions became more interesting
When I first began studying theology, I tended to approach research as a way of finding the correct answer.
If I were writing an essay about a biblical passage, I would want to know what it meant. I’d consult a commentary, find an interpretation that seemed reasonable, and hope it would help me produce something suitably academic.
I suspect I was treating scholarly books as rather elaborate answer books. The trouble is that theological scholarship rarely works like that.
One commentator would argue convincingly for a particular interpretation, only for another equally knowledgeable scholar to disagree. Sometimes they differed over historical circumstances, the meaning of a Hebrew or Greek word, or how a story fitted into the wider biblical narrative.
Initially, I found this deeply frustrating. Seriously, surely somebody knew the answer?!
But as I spent more time reading, I began to realise that the arguments themselves were often more interesting than the conclusions. One scholar might notice something another had overlooked. A historical detail could change how a familiar passage was understood, while a word that seemed straightforward in English might carry several possible meanings.
Sometimes I would finish my research more confident about a passage. At other times, I would find myself less certain than when I began. Strangely, I gradually stopped seeing that as a failure.
I was discovering that studying Scripture wasn’t simply about collecting answers from people who knew more than I did. It was about engaging with what they were saying, weighing their arguments and eventually developing my own understanding.
And sometimes, of course, changing my own mind.
From college essays to Sunday sermons
When I eventually moved into parish ministry, Logos came with me.
My research was no longer primarily concerned with essays. I was preparing sermons, leading Bible studies and answering questions from parishioners. I discovered that having access to scholarship was one thing, but knowing what to do with it was something else entirely.
Most people attending church on a Sunday morning weren’t particularly interested in the finer details of a scholarly disagreement, unless that disagreement helped them understand the passage being read. They didn’t need me to demonstrate how many books I’d consulted and have an impressive bookshelf. They needed me to make sense of Scripture in language they could understand.
Sometimes I might spend hours investigating a passage only to use a tiny part of what I’d discovered in the sermon itself. I began to appreciate that good research often sits beneath what we say, rather than appearing in everything we say.
I also continued using Logos because of my dyslexia. Being able to organise my sermon material and display it in a font, colour and size that I found comfortable made a real difference when delivering sermons.
What had helped me through theological college had become part of my everyday ministry.
A different kind of ministry
A few years ago, my work as a parish priest came to an end because of ill health.
It was a difficult transition, and certainly not the future I’d imagined when I first arrived at theological college. Yet one of the things that remained was my love of Scripture.
Today, much of my work involves researching and writing about the Bible, both on Medium and through my own publication, Sacred & Secular, here on Substack.
I still particularly enjoy those moments when something I’ve read dozens of times suddenly makes me stop and look again. Perhaps it’s a seemingly insignificant detail in one of the Gospels, something archaeology has uncovered about the world Jesus inhabited, or an ancient Jewish custom that changes the way I understand a familiar encounter.
Often, the starting point is just a question that won’t leave me alone, and after all these years, I still find myself returning to Logos to explore it.
The software has developed considerably since my college days, and my library has grown alongside it. Recently, I also became a Logos partner, and the team generously provided me with an expanded Researcher Platinum library and a complimentary year of Logos Max.
I’m genuinely grateful for that support, particularly because Logos was part of my work long before anyone suggested the possibility of a partnership.
It has also given me an enormous, wonderful collection of new books to explore. Somewhere, I suspect the student version of me is looking at that prospect with a mixture of excitement and absolute horror.
What fifteen years have taught me
I began studying theology believing that sufficiently knowledgeable people would have worked everything out, and my task was to read what they had written and remember enough of it to pass my assignments.
Now I’m much more interested in understanding the questions.
That doesn’t mean I no longer reach conclusions or that every interpretation is equally convincing. Some arguments are much more persuasive than others, and I still want to know what a passage means. But I’ve learned to distinguish between what the Bible actually says and what I’ve always assumed it means.
We all bring something of ourselves to Scripture. Our childhood experiences, church traditions, theological preferences and personal histories affect what we notice and how we interpret what we read. Research doesn’t remove those influences, but it can help us recognise them.
I still have dyslexia, still forget things I’ve read and still occasionally stare at a paragraph wondering what on earth its author is trying to say. But I’ve learned that none of those things disqualifies me from asking serious questions about Scripture.
In fact, I sometimes wonder whether those early struggles have shaped the way I write today. I know what it feels like to encounter theology that seems almost deliberately inaccessible, and I do not want the people reading my work to experience that same sense of exclusion.
Perhaps the greatest thing theological study has taught me is that learning doesn’t always lead us towards certainty.
Sometimes it gives us the confidence to keep asking questions.
The resources behind my writing
I’ve used Logos Bible Software since 2011, throughout my theological education, parish ministry and now my work as a writer. It remains one of my main tools for researching Scripture, comparing scholarly interpretations and exploring biblical history.
I’m grateful to Logos for supporting my writing with additional research resources and a complimentary year of Logos Max.
If you’re interested in exploring Logos yourself, you can find out more through my Logos partner link. If you buy through that link, I’ll receive a commission. All views are my own.