concord-mcp

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.

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 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.)
• 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 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, 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: 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.

<details> <summary>On a Mac</summary>

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

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

</details>

<details> <summary>On Windows</summary>

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"

</details>

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, 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.

<details> <summary>Where is that file, exactly?</summary>

• 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. </details>

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:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "concord": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["--directory", "REPLACE-THIS/concord-mcp", "run", "concord-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

<details> <summary>What do I put instead of REPLACE-THIS?</summary>

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) </details>

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?

<details> <summary>Claude says "Concord isn't reachable…"</summary>

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. </details>

<details> <summary>No tools icon after restarting Claude Desktop</summary>

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. </details>

<details> <summary>"docker: command not found" or nothing happens in step 2</summary>

Docker Desktop isn't running. Open it (look for the whale icon) and try again. If it was never installed, that's step 1. </details>

Still stuck? Open an Issue and describe where you got to — we'll help.

Part of the Concord family

Concord is the Bible on your computer. 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.