Bible - MCP Server - Rob Keplin - Software EngineerRob Keplin

I’m hosting an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that provides AI assistants with direct access to Bible text, cross-references, and full-text search across multiple translations.

Why?

Bible verses are frequently taken out of context. This MCP server helps mitigate that by giving AI assistants the ability to:

Look up the exact text of any verse in multiple translations
Retrieve cross-references to see how passages connect across the entire Bible
Search for keywords and phrases across all books and translations
Compare verses side-by-side in different translations
Understand the broader context of a passage by reading surrounding verses

Usage

Connecting via Claude Desktop

Add the following to your Claude Desktop configuration file (~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS)

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "bible": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "mcp-remote", "https://bible-mcp.rkeplin.com/sse"]
    }
  }
}

Connecting via Claude Code

claude mcp add bible -- npx -y mcp-remote https://bible-mcp.rkeplin.com/sse

Connecting via Cursor

Go to Cursor Settings > MCP and add a new server:

Name: bible
Type: command
Command: npx -y mcp-remote https://bible-mcp.rkeplin.com/sse

Example Prompts

Once connected, you can ask your AI assistant things like:

“What does John 3:16 say in the ESV?”
“Read Romans 8:28-30 in the NIV”
“Show me the cross-references for Romans 8:28”
“Show me Jeremiah 29:11 in context — what comes before and after it?”
“Compare Psalm 23:1 across the KJV, ESV, and NLT”
“Read me all of Genesis chapter 1 in the NLT”
“What verses are related to Ephesians 2:8-9?”
“Find all mentions of ‘grace’ in the book of Romans”
“Is Matthew 18:20 really about small group gatherings? Show me the context.”

Available Tools

Tool	Description
`get_verse`	Get the text of a specific verse by book, chapter, and verse number
`get_passage`	Get a range of verses from a chapter (e.g. Romans 8:28-30)
`get_chapter`	Get all verses in a chapter
`get_verse_in_context`	Get a verse with surrounding verses to understand the full context
`get_cross_references`	Get cross-references for a specific verse, showing related passages
`compare_translations`	Compare a verse side-by-side across multiple translations
`search`	Full-text search across Bible text, optionally scoped to a specific book
`list_books`	List all books of the Bible with testament and genre info
`list_translations`	List all available Bible translations

Supported Translations

Abbreviation	Version
KJV	King James Version
ASV	American Standard Version
BBE	Bible in Basic English
DBY	Darby Bible
WEB	World English Bible
YLT	Young’s Literal Translation
ESV	English Standard Version
NIV	New International Version
NLT	New Living Translation
NLT2015	New Living Translation (2015)

Architecture

This MCP server runs in the same Kubernetes cluster as the existing Bible API infrastructure, sharing:

MariaDB (bible-db) — Bible text across all translations, books, genres, and cross-reference relations
Elasticsearch (bible-es) — Full-text search indices for each translation

The server exposes an SSE (Server-Sent Events) transport for remote MCP connections over HTTPS.

Rob Keplin - Software Engineer

# Bible – MCP Server