Selah Bible Study (selah.so)

npx add-mcp 'https://selah.so/api/mcp'

MCP server

Selah Bible Study MCP server. Endpoint, OAuth, client setup, and the tools an assistant can call on your account.

This is the technical reference for the Selah Bible Study MCP server: the endpoint agents connect to, how they authenticate, and what they can call. If you just want to use Selah Bible Study from an assistant, Connectors is the same setup in shorter form.

Connecting

The server address is https://selah.so/api/mcp. It uses OAuth. Selah Bible Study is listed on the official MCP Registry as so.selah/selah.

Each client asks you to sign in with your Selah Bible Study account (or create one) and to allow the connection. Nothing is shared until you do.

Claude

1. Open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
2. Paste https://selah.so/api/mcp.
3. Sign in with your Selah Bible Study account when prompted.

ChatGPT

1. Open Plugins, choose the plus button, then Add custom MCP server.
2. Name it Selah Bible Study. Under Connection, paste https://selah.so/api/mcp and choose OAuth.
3. Confirm the warning, create it as a plugin, and install it.
4. Sign in with your Selah Bible Study account when prompted.

Grok

1. Open Connectors, choose New Connector, then Custom.
2. Paste https://selah.so/api/mcp.
3. Sign in with your Selah Bible Study account when prompted.

Any MCP client

Any client that supports remote MCP servers with OAuth can connect using https://selah.so/api/mcp. Paste that address and sign in with your Selah Bible Study account when prompted.

What you can ask

Prompts you can give once Selah Bible Study is connected. Each one calls a tool this server exposes on your own account.

• "Read John 3:16." (read_passage)
• "Search my study notes on grace." (search_notes)
• "Look up Strong's G26 or H7225." (lookup_lexicon)
• "Show cross-references for Romans 8:28." (get_cross_refs)
• "What is my reading for today?" (get_today_reading)
• "What am I praying for right now?" (read_prayers)

To read Bible passages, name a reference such as John 3:16 or Psalm 23. Strong's lookup takes the number: G26 for Greek, H7225 for Hebrew. To search your study notes, name a topic from your own notes.

Endpoint

POST https://selah.so/api/mcp

Model Context Protocol over Streamable HTTP, JSON-RPC 2.0. There is no SSE transport and no session affinity — every request stands alone, so any client that speaks Streamable HTTP works.

Protocol version: 2025-06-18. Server name: selah.

Authentication

OAuth 2.1 authorization code with PKCE. Selah does not issue its own tokens — Clerk is the authorization server. An unauthenticated call is answered with a 401 and the discovery pointer:

WWW-Authenticate: Bearer error="invalid_token",
  error_description="No authorization provided",
  resource_metadata="https://selah.so/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/api/mcp"

From there the flow is the standard one:

1. Protected resource metadata — https://selah.so/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/api/mcp (also served at the root /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource) names the authorization server. Its resource is the endpoint URL, https://selah.so/api/mcp.
2. Authorization server metadata — https://clerk.selah.so/.well-known/oauth-authorization-server carries the authorize, token and registration endpoints.
3. Client identity — either register dynamically (RFC 7591) at https://clerk.selah.so/oauth/register, or use a Client ID Metadata Document: an HTTPS URL as your client_id, no pre-registration. Both are advertised; pick whichever your client prefers.
4. Authorize and exchange — PKCE with S256 is required. Scopes are openid profile email.

Access tokens are JWTs. A person who has never used Selah Bible Study gets a free account during this flow, so connecting and signing up are the same action. Listing tools works on that free account. Calling any tool requires Selah Plus. A free account's call is refused and does no work. No tool is exempt. The free companion allowance (30 messages a month, shared across the web app, iOS, and Telegram) does not apply to these calls.

If your client sends a resource parameter (RFC 8707), send https://selah.so/api/mcp. A token whose audience names another host is refused with a 401 that says it was issued for a different resource. A token with no audience is accepted.

Limits and errors

• Plan. Every tool call requires Selah Plus. tools/list does not. A free account can connect and see the tools. A call is refused before any work runs.
• Rate limit — 120 tool calls per minute per user. Over it, a JSON-RPC error with HTTP 429 and Retry-After.
• Transient failures — if Selah cannot verify a token because of an upstream outage, the answer is 503 with Retry-After, never a 401. A 401 always means the token is genuinely no longer valid and re-authorization is the right response.
• Tool errors — returned as an MCP result with isError: true and a stable code in structuredContent.code: invalid_input, licensed_translation, not_found, conflict, entitlement, refused_needs_approval, rate_limited, unavailable, internal. The text alongside it names the next step.
• Retry safety — an identical write repeated within two minutes returns the first result instead of applying twice, and a retry that arrives while the first call is still running joins it. Writes return the id of what they created.

Tools

Twenty tools, all scoped to the connected account. Required inputs are listed; every tool takes more optional ones, and the served JSON Schema in tools/list is the contract.

Reading scripture

Tool	Required	Notes
read_passage	reference	Berean Standard Bible, World English Bible or King James Version. Other translations are licensed and are not served here.
get_cross_refs	book, chapter	Cross-references for a verse or chapter.
lookup_lexicon	strong_id	Strong's entry for a Greek or Hebrew word.

The person's own material

Tool	Required	Notes
search_notes	query	Meaning and text search across their notes.
find_notes	—	Find notes by title fragment, kind or folder.
read_note	—	Full text of one note, by id or title.
read_prayers	—	Their prayer list, filterable by status.
recall_beliefs	topic	What they have written about a topic.
sharpen_belief	belief	Material for pressure-testing a belief they hold.

Writing

Tool	Required	Notes
save_capture	content	A quick thought into their stream.
save_prayer	title, content	A prayer request.
update_prayer_status	prayer_id, status	Active, waiting, answered or ongoing.
create_note	title, content	A new note.
edit_note	operations	Additions only: append, prepend, or insert after a heading.
undo_note_edit	note_id	Reverses the most recent AI edit to the note, if the note has not changed since.

Reading plans

Tool	Required	Notes
list_reading_plans	—	Curated plans plus any generated for this person.
start_reading_plan	plan_id	Resumes a paused plan, or starts at day 1.
get_today_reading	—	Plan name, day number, passages, whether today is done.
mark_reading_done	—	Marks today; marking twice is a no-op.
create_reading_plan	goal, day_count	Generates a 30, 60 or 90 day plan. Takes up to a minute and reports progress.

What the connector cannot do

Rewriting or deleting existing note text, and changing profile or notification settings, are refused with refused_needs_approval and a message pointing back to Selah. There is no approval prompt to pause into over MCP, so those stay in the app where the person can see what they are agreeing to.

No tool can reach another person's data. Licensed translations are never served. Tasks are not exposed.

Privacy

Analytics record the tool name, the client name, how long the call took, and whether it failed. Arguments and responses are never recorded, and neither is note, prayer or capture content. Anything written through the connector is labelled in Selah as coming from an assistant.

Questions

Write to hello@selah.so.

[

Connectors

Connect Selah Bible Study to Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, or any MCP client.

](https://selah.so/docs/connectors)