How Chase Replogle Uses Logos for Sermon Prep and Writing — A Conversation with a Pastor and Author
A working pastor's honest approach to custom layouts, Link Sets, Collections, and the Print Library — and why Logos has become his most trusted research companion.
If you’ve ever stared at a shelf of theology books and thought, “I know the answer is in one of these, but I just can’t find it!” Taking comfort in knowing that you’re not alone.
Chase Replogle knows that feeling well. He’s pastored the same congregation for thirteen years. He preaches expositionally through whole books of the Bible. In fact, he spent the better part of a year and a half working through Luke’s Gospel alone. On top of that, he’s written two books, runs a long-running podcast called Pastor Writer, and regularly uses Logos not just for Sunday sermons, but for long-form research and writing projects too.
In other words, he’s the kind of person who has a lot riding on his tools actually working.
And when he sat down to walk through how he uses Logos, what came through most clearly was this: the features that changed his study most weren’t flashy. They were quiet, structural decisions that removed friction so he could stay in the text longer.
Custom layouts — and why they matter more than you think.
Before Chase discovered custom layouts, opening Logos felt a little daunting. Every time he sat down to study, he’d have to reconstruct his workspace from scratch. He’d find the commentaries, pulling up the text, arranging the panels…
Now, when he opens Logos, his Luke layout is already there. One click, and everything is waiting: the ESV in verse-by-verse format, his commentaries linked to scroll in sync, the Exegetical Guide open on the side, and a second Bible panel set to receive all hyperlink traffic so he never loses his place in the primary text.
That second Bible panel trick alone is worth the conversation. Chase explained that whenever he clicks a cross-reference in a commentary—say, Matthew 25—it used to replace the passage he was studying. Now, by sending hyperlinks to a second open Bible panel, the cross-reference opens there, and his Luke passage stays put.
It’s a small thing. But when you’re doing sustained exegetical work, it’s the kind of small thing that changes how you feel about sitting down to study in the first place.
Link Sets — keeping everything in sync.
Inside his layout, Chase keeps his commentaries linked together using Logos’ Link Sets feature. All of them—the commentaries on Luke, the background resources, the Exegetical Guide—are assigned to the same link set and scroll together as he moves through the text.
What this means practically is that as he reads Luke 19, his commentaries are already there. He doesn’t have to scroll each one independently or search for where he left off. The text leads, and everything follows.
He also keeps two particularly rich resources open alongside his standard commentaries — one focused on Second Temple literature and rabbinic background, and one on how the Old Testament is being used throughout the New. Both are linked to scroll with his primary Bible text, so when he’s in Luke 21 wondering about a phrase like “this generation will not pass away,” the background context is right there—not three tabs and a search query away.
If you’ve never explored what first-century Judaism actually looked like around the time the Gospels were written, Chase’s workflow is a compelling invitation to try. He uses the Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash to follow Luke verse by verse through Mishnaic and Talmudic parallels. This resource brings the world of the text to life without requiring a doctorate to navigate. For Old Testament background, he keeps the Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament by Beale and Carson linked alongside—cataloging both explicit quotations and subtle allusions across every New Testament book.
Notable Resources from our Interview
These aren’t resources most pastors think to reach for. But once you do, it’s hard to study the Gospels without them.
Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash
A verse-by-verse study of Jewish sources behind the New Testament. Chase uses it to trace Mishnaic and Talmudic parallels as he preaches through Luke—bringing the world of the text to life without requiring a doctorate to navigate.
Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
Edited by Beale and Carson, this resource catalogs both explicit quotations and subtle allusions to the Old Testament across every New Testament book. Chase keeps it linked alongside his primary Bible text as a constant reference for understanding the scriptural background in Luke.
English Standard Version (ESV)
Chase’s primary Bible text in Logos, anchored in his custom layout and linked to his commentary resources via Link Sets. Every resource he opens scrolls in sync with the ESV, keeping the text at the center of his study and sermon preparation.
Collections are a curated library within your library
Most Logos libraries are larger than they look and the Collections feature fixes that..
One of the most underused features in Logos, according to Chase, is Collections.
Most Logos users have large libraries. And I mean far larger than they can realistically search effectively. When you run a broad search across everything, you end up with results from books you’ve never opened, resources you didn’t know you had, and commentary from sources you can’t quite place. It can feel more overwhelming than helpful.
Collections solve this by letting you build your own curated shelves, and then search only those shelves.
Chase has a Second Temple Literature collection that includes Josephus, Philo, the Mishnah, the Tosefta, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has a Background Resources collection stocked with dictionaries and reference works he trusts. And he keeps saved searches in his sidebar that take him directly to those Collections with one click.
The setup takes a little time. But once it’s done, searching feels like pulling from a trusted shelf rather than wandering an entire library.
The Print Library is made for the books on your shelf
.Chase is a reader. Books behind him on the wall, a whole row in the converted dining room, a stack on the nightstand. And Logos’ Print Library has become one of the quiet tools that bridges those physical books and his digital workspace.
He uses it most often as a writer. In the middle of a book project, he’ll quote something like a line from C.S. Lewis, a thought from a background text, and then lose the reference by the time he’s doing footnotes. The Print Library lets him add physical books he owns, search their contents, and get the page numbers he needs without pulling every volume off the shelf.
He also noted that Logos automatically formats citations and footnotes when you copy text from a digital resource—which, if you’ve ever been deep in a manuscript and realized your footnotes are a mess, is the kind of feature that makes you quietly exhale.
The Exegetical Guide ties all of this together for Chase’s preaching work—sitting open in his layout, synced to his passage, giving him a word-by-word breakdown of the Greek text as he works. He described it as always having just enough language support within reach, without needing to switch tools or open a separate resource entirely.
A gentle challenge for this week.
Pick one book you’re preaching or teaching or researching through right now. Open a custom layout in Logos and save it with a name.
Then try linking your commentaries to your Bible text using a Link Set. Scroll through a passage. Let everything move together.
If you have a handful of resources you trust, try building a simple Collection and save the search to your sidebar.
You don’t need to do all of this at once. Chase didn’t build his workflow in a day. But one steady adjustment at a time, Logos can go from a tool you tolerate to one you genuinely look forward to opening.
And for a pastor with a congregation to serve and a calling to honor, that’s not a small thing. That’s sustainable ministry.