Apps Study and preach
Study and preach
Bible study and sermon preparation software
Study software puts the text, the original languages, and the library on one desk. Three questions decide the purchase. How good is the Greek and Hebrew tooling. What will the library cost over ten years. What happens to the books you bought if you leave the platform. A pastor with a Greek New Testament, a concordance, and three commentaries read to the end is better equipped than one with four hundred unopened digital volumes.
Before you buy
Demand this in writing
Ask for every line below before a card goes on file. A vendor who will not put an answer in an email has answered.
- Greek and Hebrew texts with morphology, and lexicons scholars actually cite
- License terms in writing covering what happens to purchased books if you cancel
- Offline access, because study happens away from the office
- Search across translations, original languages, and your own notes together
- Notes that carry from the passage through to a manuscript you can preach
- The ten year cost of the library you intend to build, not the entry price
- An export path for your own notes in a format you can read without the software
The tools
Named options
Rows are not ranked. They run from the tool most churches meet first to the narrower options, and anything of ours goes last. Where a price was verified, the row carries the date it was read and a link to the page it came from.
Logos
Right for
Pastors building a large digital library with deep original-language tooling
The largest commercial library, with strong morphology, cross-references, and guided workflows. The library is the expense rather than the software, so decide which volumes you will read before buying shelves of them. It asks a lot of older hardware.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you preach from two commentaries and a lexicon. You would be renting a seminary library to read four books.
Price
Base packages plus per-resource purchases, with a subscription option. We have not verified a current figure, so none is printed here.
Accordance
Right for
Exegetical work where search precision matters more than catalog size
Respected for fast, exact Greek and Hebrew searching and for careful scholarly modules. The interface takes real learning and the catalog is smaller than Logos. Mac-only from 1994 until the Windows version arrived in 2013, and it now runs on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you want guided workflows and a wide popular catalog. That is the other product.
Price
Collections plus per-module purchases. We have not verified a current figure, so none is printed here.
Olive Tree
Right for
Daily reading and light study on a phone or tablet
A clean reading experience that syncs across devices, and resources bought one at a time as you need them. Thin for heavy exegesis, which is a fair trade for what it is.
Who should skip it
Skip it as your only study tool if you preach weekly.
Price
The app is free. Resources are bought individually through their store.
Blue Letter Bible
Right for
Free original-language reference in a browser
Interlinears, Strong numbers, lexicon entries, and public domain commentaries at no cost, run by a donation-funded ministry. Nothing to install for the web version. The limits are real: no modern commentary sets and thin note-taking next to the paid desktops.
Who should skip it
Skip it as a library. It is a reference desk, and it is a good one.
Price
Free. Funded by donations.
Berean
By Church PostingRight for
Pastors who want study and sermon preparation in one place
Our study and sermon preparation app: original-language texts, a commentary shelf, and a pipeline that carries passage notes through to a finished manuscript. In development and not available. It sits in this list so a reader knows we build one while reviewing the others.
Who should skip it
Everyone, today. Blue Letter Bible covers free reference work now, Logos or Accordance cover deep study.
Price
Not available. Pricing publishes when the product does.
Software does not do the exegesis. Buy the tool that gets you into the text fastest and spend the difference on commentaries you will read to the end.
Have a bill that says otherwise?
Invoices from pastors and treasurers correct these pages faster than anything else does. Send one, or read how we review.