Bible MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that provides Bible passage retrieval, built on mcp-service-kit.

This server lets AI assistants read Bible passages from various translations. It runs in two modes:

• --mode stdio (default): MCP over stdin/stdout, for local AI assistant integration
• --mode http: MCP over streamable HTTP at /mcp, for networked access

Features

MCP Tools (for AI assistants)

• get_passage(passage, version): retrieves Bible passages. Pass several references separated by semicolons (e.g., “John 3:16; Romans 8:28”) to get them all at once. If version is omitted, the configured default (ESV) is used.

Bible Versions

version is passed to BibleGateway as-is, so any version abbreviation it offers works (e.g. ESV, NIV, KJV, NASB, LSB); there is no list to maintain here. See BibleGateway’s versions page. If a version isn’t available, the tool returns success: false with the error.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• uv package manager

Installing uv

On Linux/macOS:

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

On Windows:

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

Alternatively, you can install uv using pip:

pip install uv

After installation, restart your terminal or run source ~/.bashrc (Linux/macOS) or restart your command prompt (Windows).

Step 1: Install Dependencies

# From this directory
cd mcp-bible

# Install dependencies (including mcp-service-kit from GitHub)
uv sync

Step 2: Configure Environment (optional)

# Copy example configuration
cp .env.example .env

# Edit .env with your settings
vi .env

Usage

Mode 1: stdio (Default) - Local AI Assistant Integration

# Default mode - MCP over stdin/stdout
uv run mcp-bible

# Explicitly specify stdio mode
uv run mcp-bible --mode stdio

Use this mode to integrate directly with AI assistants such as GitHub Copilot or Claude Desktop.

Mode 2: http - MCP over HTTP

uv run mcp-bible --mode http --port 3000 --no-auth

This serves MCP at http://localhost:3000/mcp for networked AI assistants.

No authentication provider is configured, so HTTP mode needs --no-auth (or MCP_AUTH_ENABLED=false). Without it, mcp-service-kit refuses to start rather than serve the tools unauthenticated. To protect the endpoint, override create_auth_provider() in mcp_bible/server.py (see Authentication in the kit’s README).

Connect an MCP Client

You can test the MCP tools by connecting GitHub Copilot or another MCP client:

// .vscode/mcp.json
{
  "servers": {
    "bible": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "http://localhost:3000/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Then ask Copilot:

• “Show me John 3:16”