From the outset, I’ll say that there are not too many Logos products that disappoint. Might this be one that does? You’ll have to read on to find out.
Official Description From Logos.com
Find precisely the words you need for any occasion with 1,500 Quotations for Preachers, a five-volume set, with slides. Selecting a fitting quotation to share with your congregation—a task that can often take hours—will now take you minutes. In this resource you’ll find entries from more than one hundred authors and works, including Augustine of Hippo, John Chrysostom, Anselm of Canterbury,Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Ignatius of Loyola, Richard Baxter, John Bunyan, G. K. Chesterton,Charles Spurgeon, and more. Share the quotations with professionally designed slides—one to accompany each quotation.
1,500 Quotations for Preachers:
- Provides material for sermon prep—If you’re preaching on a Scripture or topic, you can search this resource to easily find relevant quotations.
- Makes sharing easy—The slides make it easy to incorporate quotations into your presentation. To export a quotation into a document, just copy and paste, and the quotation will appear automatically footnoted with bibliographic information for the volume.
- Makes for elegant presentations—The slide design matches the church era from which the quotation originated, setting the stage for you to articulate how your message connects with the history of Christian thought.
- Saves time and effort—No need to comb through multiple books looking for an appropriate quotation. This curated collection is categorized multiple ways, making this resource easier to use than other quotation books.
- Ready for using today—We have updated the archaic language (like “thee” and “thou”) from older sources, making these prayers ready to use in a modern context. The prayers are also abbreviated to a sermon-appropriate length.
This curated collection of 1,500 quotations, which works with Proclaim and other presentation software, is organized not only by church era, but by title, theme, and associated Scripture references. Every quotation includes a link to the original resource in your Logos library. Each quotation is just a few clicks away from being part of your sermon or message, edited to confirm with modern English to the perfect length for preaching.
Key Features
- 1,500 quotations ready to use in your sermon or message
- 1,500 accompanying professionally designed slides, with designs to match the church era from which the quote originated, allowing you to articulate how your message connects with the history of Christian thought
- Each quotation linked to its original source in Logos
- Searchability by Scripture, author, or other categories; the entire quotation can be easily exported
- Categorization by theme, title, and affiliated Scriptures, making it easy to find just what you need for any occasion
Praise for the Print Edition
This is a robust set of volumes that has obviously been put together by a preacher who knows what preachers need in a quotation compendium. Preachers of every stripe will find this a beneficial addition to their Logos collection.—J. D. Greear, lead pastor, The Summit Church, Raleigh-Durham, NC
My Thoughts
There is a lot that goes into preparing a sermon. You have to dig through layers of interpretation all the while attempting to evade your own inclinations and presuppositions. Logos appears to understand this age-old dilemma and is devoting much of its attention to simplifying the steps that a pastor takes to create a sermon and presentation, thereby saving time. So does this resource ultimately help a pastor out? Does it save the pastor time in research (or, maybe more importantly, is it worth the $93 asking price for all 1,500 Quotations)? The short answer is, yes.
If you are interested in this product than you most likely understand historical and modern theology is important. You understand that when attempting to depict themes of passages, you have got to have do a lot of work. You know that expositing a pericope so to result in an accurate application means you wrestle with the text alongside our forefathers – you don’t do it alone.
Though this resource does not replace an entire set of our church father’s works, nor does it offer that which a systematic theology text from the 19th or 20th centuries offers, this collections of quotations will get or keep your research headed in the right direction. Not only will it assist you in that way, but it will do the painstaking work of presenting your quote to your audience. Beautiful slides are already created for you and, once you find the slide that you need, it is only a matter of saving it to the PowerPoint or Proclaim slideshow that you’re using for your sermon. Pastorum has really done the behind the scenes work for you, so you can take care of what is seen on Sunday.
I just said, “once you find the slide that you need.” The question that you should be asking is, “How easy is it to sift through 1,500 quotations from theologians who have lived anytime over the last 2,000 years? If you use Logos 5, it is actually not that difficult at all. Let me show you!
I am doing a lesson this Sunday on the Church, so I opened up my Sermon Starter Guide and started typing the word “Church…” Logos finished the line with a few suggestions (“Church Fellowship & Unity,” “Church: Leadership,” “Church: Nature,” “Church,” and so on). I have my verse chosen already, and it matches the theme of “Church Fellowship & Unity” so I select that one and run the Sermon Starter Guide.
Now if I scroll down to Preaching Resources than I have a list of my Pastorum resources that are searched through for the theme of “Church.” Now rather than having a list of 1,500 quotations to sort through, it appears I have about 40 quotations to mine for what theological truths or themes that I am looking for.
It is really important to mention that all quotes, though some appear to be revised/updated for the ease of reading and understanding their original meanings (especially if you’re presenting them to a congregation), are linked back to their original resource. You’ll have to own a copy of the original resource to actually pull it up and read the context.
Though there is much more to this jam-packed resource, I pray that this is been both insightful and helpful. The collection is great and anybody who has studied and appreciates historical interpretation should give this serious consideration. Even if that is not your forté, than I would encourage you to look into this collection.
Click here to learn more and see it in action.
