Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord-mcp

Read-only MCP server for Concord — Scripture lookup, semantic search, places, journeys, and word study as LLM tools. LAN-first, fully offline.
https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord-mcp

bible concord fastmcp llm-tools mcp offline-first scripture self-hosted

Last synced: 6 days ago
JSON representation

Read-only MCP server for Concord — Scripture lookup, semantic search, places, journeys, and word study as LLM tools. LAN-first, fully offline.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
![concord-mcp — looked up, never made up.](docs/banner.svg)



Maybe this has happened to you: you asked ChatGPT or another AI assistant for a

Bible verse, and it gave you one — confident, beautiful, and not actually in the

Bible. These assistants answer from memory, and their memory of Scripture is

imperfect. concord-mcp fixes that one thing: **every verse your assistant shows

you is fetched from a real Bible on your own computer**, with a reference like

*John 3:16 (KJV)* you can check for yourself.



**Are you a developer?** Everything technical is in

[docs/DEVELOPERS.md](docs/DEVELOPERS.md).



## What this actually is, in plain words



Three pieces work together:



- **Claude** is the AI assistant — the one you talk to. It's made by a company

  called Anthropic, and you use it through a free app called Claude Desktop.

- **Concord** is a real Bible that lives on your computer — several complete

  translations, plus maps, study references, and the original Greek and Hebrew,

  all stored locally.

- **concord-mcp** (this project) is the connector. It hands the assistant one

  rule: *look it up, don't recall it.*



Think of a librarian with a card catalog. A good librarian doesn't quote books

from memory — she walks to the shelf, opens the book, and reads you the line,

spine in hand. concord-mcp gives your assistant the catalog and the shelf.



Once connected, the assistant can:



- find any verse by its reference ("What does John 3:16 say?")

- find a verse by its exact wording ("the one about still waters")

- search by idea — "verses about anxiety" — even when the word never appears

- look up what the Bible says about a subject, using a century-old study index

  compiled by hand

- show the passages generations of readers have connected to a verse

- show the Greek or Hebrew behind a verse, word by word

- explain what an original-language word actually means

- tell you where a place was — and honestly say "location unknown" when no one

  knows

- walk the great journeys, like Paul's travels, stop by stop with sources

- hand you a verse at random, for a verse of the day



No menus, no commands — you just ask in plain English, and the assistant

chooses how to look it up.



**Want to build this yourself?**

[concord-tutorial-ai](https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord-tutorial-ai) is

a free five-lesson course that hand-rolls the small version of exactly this

server — the loop, the one rule, the honest errors — in plain JavaScript, no

AI experience needed. By the last lesson you're reading this repo's source at

its v1.0.0 tag and recognizing every part.



## Why you might want this



- **Quotes you can check.** Every verse arrives with its reference. Open your

  own Bible to the same place — it will be there.

- **Search by meaning.** "Verses about anxiety" finds Matthew 6 even though the

  word "anxiety" isn't in it.

- **Word-study depth without seminary software.** Ask why John 21 uses two

  different Greek words for "love" and watch the answer come from the actual

  Greek text.

- **Honest unknowns.** Ask where the land of Nod was, and you'll be told the

  truth: no one knows. No invented map pins.

- **The Bible stays home.** The Scripture data sits on your machine, not on

  someone's server.



## Honest downsides



Worth knowing before you spend an evening on setup:



- **Your conversation travels.** The Bible lives on your computer, but Claude

  is an internet service — your *questions and its answers* go to the company

  that runs it, like any chat service. (Fully private setups exist, but they're

  technical — see [docs/DEVELOPERS.md](docs/DEVELOPERS.md).)

- **The guarantee covers the quotes, not the commentary.** When the assistant

  quotes a verse, that quote came off the shelf. But its *explanations* are

  still an AI talking — thoughtful-sounding, sometimes wrong. Treat it as a

  study aid, not a pastor. That's exactly why every quote carries a reference:

  so you can open the passage yourself.

- **Setup takes real effort.** This is the most involved project in the Concord

  family: three free programs and one settings file, and the first time

  through expect 30–45 minutes. The steps below assume nothing.

- **The translations are older ones.** Concord ships public-domain Bibles —

  the King James and its relatives. Faithful, beloved, and in older English;

  modern copyrighted translations (NIV, ESV) are not included.



## What you'll need



- A computer (Windows or Mac) with about 2 GB of free disk space

- An internet connection for the setup and for talking to Claude

- A free [Claude](https://claude.ai) account

- 30–45 minutes, once



## Get it running



**1. Install Docker Desktop.**

Docker is a free tool that runs a program and everything it needs in a tidy,

self-contained bundle — Concord arrives as one of those bundles. Download it

from [docker.com](https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/), install,

and open it once so it's running (look for the whale icon).



**2. Get Concord running.**

Concord is the Bible itself. *(Already using songbird? You already have

Concord running — skip ahead to step 3.)*

Follow the two-step quickstart in

[Concord's README](https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord#readme): download

it, then start it with one command. When it's up, the Bible is being served on

your computer.



**3. Install uv.**

uv is a small free helper that downloads and runs this project for you.



On a Mac



Open the Terminal app, paste this line, and press Enter:



```

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

```



On Windows



Open PowerShell (search "PowerShell" in the Start menu), paste this line, and

press Enter:



```

powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -c "irm https://astral.sh/uv/install.ps1 | iex"

```



**4. Download this project.**

Click the green **`Code`** button near the top of this page, then

**Download ZIP**. Unzip it somewhere you'll be able to find again — your

Documents folder is fine. Remember where: you'll type that location in step 6.



**5. Install Claude Desktop.**

Download it from [claude.ai/download](https://claude.ai/download), install,

and sign in with your free account.



**6. Tell Claude Desktop about the connector.**

This is the one fiddly step — a small settings file. In Claude Desktop, open

**Settings → Developer → Edit Config**. That opens a file called

`claude_desktop_config.json`.



Where is that file, exactly?



- **Mac:** `~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json`

- **Windows:** `%APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json`



The Settings → Developer → Edit Config button takes you straight to it either

way.



Replace the file's contents with exactly this — changing only the one marked

line to the folder where you unzipped this project in step 4:



```json

{

  "mcpServers": {

    "concord": {

      "command": "uv",

      "args": ["--directory", "REPLACE-THIS/concord-mcp", "run", "concord-mcp"]

    }

  }

}

```



What do I put instead of REPLACE-THIS?



The full location of the unzipped folder. For example:



- Mac: `/Users/yourname/Documents/concord-mcp`

- Windows: `C:\\Users\\yourname\\Documents\\concord-mcp` (in this file,

  Windows paths need doubled backslashes, exactly like that)



Save the file and **restart Claude Desktop** (fully quit it, then open it

again).



**7. The first win.**

Look for the small tools icon (a plug or sliders, near the message box) — that

means Claude can see the connector. Now ask:



> *What does Psalm 23 say?*



If the answer comes back verse by verse, each line tagged like

**Psalms 23:1 (KJV)** — it's working. Every one of those verses just came off

the shelf on your own computer.



## Trouble?



Claude says "Concord isn't reachable…"



Concord (the Bible) isn't running. Open Docker Desktop, make sure it's started

(the whale icon), and start Concord again per step 2. Then ask your question

again — no restart of Claude needed.



No tools icon after restarting Claude Desktop



Almost always the path in the settings file. Open Settings → Developer → Edit

Config again and check the `REPLACE-THIS` line: it must be the real location

of the unzipped folder, and on Windows every backslash must be doubled

(`C:\\Users\\...`). Save and fully restart Claude Desktop again.



"docker: command not found" or nothing happens in step 2



Docker Desktop isn't running. Open it (look for the whale icon) and try again.

If it was never installed, that's step 1.



Still stuck? [Open an Issue](https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord-mcp/issues)

and describe where you got to — we'll help.



## Part of the Concord family



[Concord](https://github.com/kbennett2000/concord) is the Bible on your

computer. [songbird](https://github.com/kbennett2000/songbird) is a quiet

place to read it and keep notes. concord-mcp connects it to an AI assistant —

looked up, never made up.



MIT licensed. Built with care, for one real reader.