We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.
Read the Bibleand understand it
Ankyra is a free website with the whole Bible and study notes that explain it in plain words. It also gives honest answers to the questions people ask about the Christian faith. The name is Greek for ‘anchor’.
For anyone who wants to understand the Bible
You might have been a Christian for years, or be opening a Bible for the first time. You might still be working out whether any of it is true.
Ankyra is written for all of you. It uses everyday words, explains church words the first time they come up (Church Words Explained covers the common ones), and is honest about where Christians disagree. You don’t need an account, and nothing here costs anything.
What you’ll find
The Bible, with study notes
The whole Bible in a modern translation, with notes on each passage: its setting, what it means, and where Christians read it differently.
Open the Bible →Questions people ask
Honest answers to 25 hard questions, from suffering to hell, each linked to the passage it comes from.
See the questions →By topic
What the Bible says about money, prayer, marriage, suffering and other subjects, with the passages to read.
Browse the topics →Resources
Short guides to print or keep on your phone: how to pray, reading the Bible on your own, the gospel in two pages, and more.
See the guides →Apologetics
Reasons for faith: why Christians believe what they do, and answers about other beliefs, including a series on Jehovah’s Witness teaching.
Read more →Finding a church
What to look for in a local church, and what matters less than you might think.
Read the guide →Pick the one that sounds like you
New to the Bible
Start with Matthew’s Gospel. It tells the story of Jesus from his birth to his resurrection, and its notes are the fullest on the site. The Bible Story in Ten Steps shows where everything else fits.
Wondering whether Christianity is true
The first page of The Gospel, Given to You Straight sets out the Christian message in four short parts. Then look at the questions people ask most, and the reasons Christians give.
The Gospel, Given to You Straight (PDF) Questions people ask →
Studying a book in depth
Matthew and Philippians have complete notes, with comments on each verse. Open About the book at the top of its notes, then work through it a passage at a time. The book list shows how far each book’s notes have got.
Facing hard questions, or Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door
Questions people ask covers the objections that come up most. If Jehovah’s Witnesses call, start with Read Your Own Bible Carefully: one page of questions you can check in their own Bible.
Where the notes stand
Matthew and Philippians have complete notes: every passage, with comments on each verse, the history behind it, and the sources.
Another 26 books have notes on every passage that are still being developed; they will be produced to the same standard. The other books have a short note on each chapter for now. The book list in the Bible shows where each book has got to.
The notes are written with the help of AI. In the complete notes, every claim is checked against the sources listed on the note. Where Christians disagree, the notes set out the main views fairly.
Add Ankyra to your home screen
It opens like an app, with its own icon and no browser bar. Books you have opened stay readable without a signal, and you can save every book at once. There is nothing to install from an app store, and no account.
The Bible
The whole Bible, free to read. Every book has an introduction, and every New Testament book has notes on each passage: the setting, what it means, the main point, and where Christians read it differently. The book list shows how far each book’s notes have got. New to the Bible? Start with Matthew. Tap a heading marked “notes” to open its note.
How the notes work, and how they’re made
The study notes explain each passage in plain words, so that someone reading it for the first time can follow what it says and why. This page explains how they are laid out, where they stand, and how they are made.
How they’re made
The notes are written with the help of AI. In the books marked complete, every claim is checked against the sources listed on the note, and the sources are linked wherever a free copy exists, so you can check them yourself.
The notes for the other books are still being developed, and will be produced to the same standard. The book list in the Bible shows where each book has got to:
Complete In progress: notes on every passage, being brought up to the same standard Brief notes: a short note on each chapter for now
Nothing here replaces your own church or your own reading of the Bible.
Report a mistake
If you think a note is wrong, it will be looked at again.
How to use them
Each book starts with About the book, a map of how it is laid out, a short guide to how to read that kind of writing, and a History & setting drop-down. Then every passage has a card. Context sets the scene. Meaning explains the passage in plain words. Big idea gives the point in a sentence. Go deeper (tap to open) shows how the passage connects with the rest of the Bible and with Christian teaching. Each link is labelled Quoted (the Bible quotes the other passage), Echo (a clear allusion), Parallel (the same teaching elsewhere) or Theology (how it feeds a wider doctrine). Often misread appears only where a verse is often taken out of context. Where readings differ appears only where Christians or scholars genuinely disagree. For discussion gives questions for your own study or for a group. Some cards also have Key words (tap one for a plain definition, and how different traditions understand it), a History & archaeology drop-down, and the sources behind the note.
Tap any Bible reference in the notes to go straight there; the back button brings you back. In the Bible text, tap a heading marked “notes” to jump to its card. Lines marked “Study note” are places where the notes split a passage; the other headings come from the translation.
Where they stand
On what Christians have always held together, the notes speak plainly: one God in three persons, Jesus fully God and fully man, his death for our sins and his bodily resurrection, the authority of the Bible, and salvation by God’s grace through faith in Christ.
The notes lean towards Reformed theology (the tradition of John Calvin and the Reformers; see the traditions below). But where faithful Christians divide (how God’s choosing relates to human choice, whether a true believer can fall away, the days of creation, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, spiritual gifts today, men and women in church leadership, the millennium), they set out the main views fairly, each at its strongest, and leave the judgement with you. The aim is to inform, not to dictate. Where the manuscripts differ, as at Mark 16:9 and John 7:53, the notes say so.
In short, this is what Christians have always believed, and what the notes take as their starting point:
One God, eternally three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Bible is God’s word, and the final authority on what is true.
God the Father is the maker of all things and the source of all life. He is holy, just and unchanging, and through Christ he calls us his children rather than his servants.
Jesus is fully God and fully man. He lived the life we could not, died in our place, and rose again.
We are saved by grace, through faith, in Christ alone, never by anything we manage ourselves.
The Holy Spirit is fully God, personal and sovereign, proceeding eternally from the Father and the Son.
The local church matters. Ankyra is a help alongside it, never a replacement for it. Help finding one →
The Church is one body: every believer in Jesus Christ, across every age and nation, joined to him as its head and to one another.
The traditions, in plain English
Evangelical: as the notes use it, Christians who hold the Bible as their final authority, put Christ’s death on the cross at the centre, and stress personal conversion and living it out. Most Reformed and Arminian Christians are evangelicals in this sense.
Reformed (Calvinist): following John Calvin and the Reformers. It holds that sin has left every person unable to turn to God by their own strength, so salvation rests on God’s choice, not ours. Those God has chosen, he calls by his Word and Spirit in a way that does not finally fail: he renews their hearts, and they then come to Christ willingly and freely. As the Westminster Confession puts it, “they come most freely, being made willing by his grace” (10.1). The person is not forced; they truly choose. How God’s sovereign grace and real human choice fit together is accepted as partly a mystery. God also keeps true believers to the end. Found in Presbyterian churches, many Baptist and independent churches, and parts of the Church of England; its classic statements are the Westminster Confession and the Canons of Dort.
Arminian (Wesleyan): named after Jacobus Arminius and carried on by John Wesley. It agrees that no one can turn to God without his grace, but holds that God gives grace to every person that makes them able to respond, and that this grace “is not irresistible” (the Arminian Articles of 1610, article 4): a person can accept it or refuse it. God’s choosing is usually understood as based on his foreknowledge of who will believe, or as his choosing of a people “in Christ”. Wesley taught that a true believer can turn away and be lost. Found in Methodist, Pentecostal and Holiness churches, and many Baptist and free churches; “free-will” evangelicals usually means this view.
Lutheran: following Martin Luther. Shares the Reformation teaching that we are justified by faith alone. Holds that God’s choosing is only ever to salvation, and that those who are lost are lost through their own fault, not because of God’s decree (Formula of Concord, article 11). Teaches that Christ’s “true body and blood” are present “under the bread and wine” in the Lord’s Supper, and that baptism is a means through which God gives forgiveness and new life.
Catholic: the Roman Catholic Church. Teaches that justification is God’s gift, first given in baptism, and is both forgiveness and a real inner renewal in which the believer freely cooperates with grace and grows. Grace can be lost through serious (“mortal”) sin and restored through confession. Reads Scripture together with Tradition, as interpreted by the Church’s teaching office.
Orthodox: the Eastern Orthodox churches (Greek, Russian and others). Describes salvation as healing and union with God (“theosis”), in which human freedom works together with God’s grace, lived out through the life of the Church and its sacraments. Gives great weight to the early church fathers and the seven ecumenical councils.
Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox views come in only where they differ in a way that matters for the passage, and each is described in its own official words.
History & archaeology labels
Every history or archaeology point carries a label showing how far scholars accept that specific point:
Well established broad agreement among scholars, believing and
secular.
Widely accepted most specialists accept it, though a minority
disagree.
Debated a live disagreement. The note says which way most scholars lean,
and why.
Evenly divided no clear majority. The note sets out the best case on each
side.
The notes speak confidently only where the evidence is clearly there. Where most scholars disagree with the traditional view, the note says so plainly, gives the strongest case on both sides, and separates arguments that rest on evidence from arguments that rest on prior beliefs, such as whether prophecy can predict the future.
Sources
Wherever a free copy exists online, the notes link to the original texts: the church fathers, the Reformers, the historic confessions of each tradition, ancient historians and museum records. They also draw on standard academic commentaries from across the spectrum. They do not cite Wikipedia or partisan websites as authorities.
The translation
The Bible text is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), a modern translation dedicated to the public domain on 30 April 2023, which lets Ankyra publish it in full.
Using and sharing
The study notes and resources are © Ankyra. You are free to read, print and share them for non-commercial use under Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0: say where they came from, and don’t sell them.
Ankyra has no tracking, no analytics and no cookies. Your place in the Bible and your settings are kept on your own device and never sent anywhere.
The fonts are Cinzel, EB Garamond and Poppins, used under the SIL Open Font Licence (Cinzel, EB Garamond, Poppins).
Search
Searches the Bible text, the note headings, questions, topics, key words and guides.
Hard questions, honest answers
These are the questions people ask most, believers and non-believers alike. Each answer is the study note on the passage the question comes from, so you can read the answer and then check the passage yourself. Where Christians disagree, the answer says so and sets out the main views before saying which one the notes take.
What the Bible says about…
A way into the study notes by subject rather than by book. Each topic lists passages worth reading, with one line on what each adds. Tap any of them to open the passage and its notes.
Guides to print or keep
Short guides in plain words, with nothing assumed, and honest about what is disputed. Print them, share them, and use them on your own or with a small group. They are free for non-commercial use.
Written to be used
A lot of Christian writing assumes you already know the words, already have the habit, and already know your way around sixty-six books. These guides don’t. Each one starts from the question people actually ask, which is why the prayer guide begins with who you are praying to, and the Bible-reading guide begins with why people stop.
Print them, or keep them on your phone
Every guide downloads as a PDF, laid out to print cleanly on A4 and easy to read on a phone or laptop. Two of them, the Discussion Sheet and the six-week reading plan in Reading the Bible on Your Own, have boxes you can type and tick in on a device instead of printing. Keep them and pass them on. To use them with a group, you don’t need to ask.
Giving a reason for the hope that is in you
Apologetics means explaining why Christians believe what they believe, and answering real questions honestly. The word comes from the Greek apologia: a reasoned defence, like one given in a court. Peter tells ordinary Christians to be ready to give one, and to give it with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15). Both halves matter.
Because the questions come anyway
Nobody is argued into faith, and winning debates isn’t the point. But if a colleague asks whether the Bible has been changed, or someone knocks on your door with a different Jesus, and you have nothing to say, it’s easy to decide quietly that there is no answer. There usually is one. You just haven’t been shown it yet.
So these guides are for two kinds of reader: Christians who want to be ready before the first serious challenge comes, and anyone weighing the claims for themselves, from whichever direction. Other people’s views are set out in words they would recognise, because an argument that only beats a caricature is worth nothing.
Where the true answer is that something is difficult, disputed or simply unknown, the guides say so. An answer that claims too much does more harm than good when someone finds out.
Topic by topic
Some are finished; others are still being written. It is better to publish slowly and be right than quickly and be corrected.
The first is a single sheet of questions, short enough to hand over at a door and check the same evening. The second works through those questions properly and adds more, arguing entirely from the Witnesses’ own Bible and interlinear. The third is about the organisation’s published record. It comes last on purpose: it is the hardest to read, and the case does not depend on it.
All three give every reference in full, state the Watchtower’s own answers in its own words, and list the arguments left out. Nothing in them concerns anyone’s private life or motives.
Four rules
- Quote people accurately, from their own sources. If a guide says a group teaches something, it shows where they teach it.
- Separate what is certain from what is arguable. Treating every point as equally strong weakens the strong ones.
- Answer the argument, never attack the person. The person at your door is not your enemy, and almost certainly believes what they are saying.
- Say “I don’t know” when it is true. It costs nothing, and it earns the right to be believed on everything else.
Why you need a church, and how to find one
Reading the Bible on your own is good, and Ankyra is here to help with it. But it isn’t a church, and it can’t be one. A church is where Christians meet to worship God, hear the Bible taught, share the Lord’s Supper (also called communion), baptise new believers and look after one another. This page sets out what to look for.
Six things worth checking
Which building you end up in matters far less than ending up in one. Distance, family, and where you already feel at home are all good reasons to choose. Beyond that, look for these.
- The Bible is opened and explained. The teaching should work through a passage rather than around a theme, so that you could go home and check it, which is exactly what the Bereans were praised for doing (Acts 17:11).
- Jesus and the cross are central, not assumed. If you could sit through several weeks without hearing why his death matters, something has drifted.
- You can find out what they believe. A church with nothing written down that you can read is a church you cannot assess.
- People actually know each other. The test is simple: would anyone notice if you stopped coming for a month?
- Leadership and money are accountable. More than one leader, published accounts, and a safeguarding policy you can ask about. That is not cynicism; it is the ordinary protection of everyone involved.
- They look outward. A church that exists only for the people already inside it has stopped doing half its job.
Things that matter less than you think
People often rule churches out for reasons that have nothing to do with whether the church is any good.
- The building. Ancient stone or a school hall. Neither tells you anything.
- The music. Organ, band, or nothing at all. It is one of the most common reasons people choose a church and one of the least important.
- The size. A church of thirty people who know each other beats one of three hundred who don’t, and a large church with real small groups beats both.
- What people wear. It tells you nothing about the church.
- Not understanding everything. You won’t, for a while. That is what other Christians are for, and Church Words Explained covers the vocabulary.
Go three times before you decide anything. One visit tells you about that morning rather than about the church: everyone has an off week, and everyone can manage one good one.
Then ask someone there a direct question: what would you say this church is actually for? The answer, and how readily it comes, will tell you more than the service did.
Why a website isn’t enough
A website you like can quietly become someone’s whole Christian life. It is always there, it never asks anything of you, and nobody notices if you stop.
But it can’t do what a church does. There are no older Christians here who have already been through what you are facing, nobody to baptise you, and nobody with a church’s responsibility to care for you. A church has all of that. It also has people you would never have chosen as friends, which turns out to be part of the point.
So use Ankyra, and go to church on Sunday. If you can only manage one, make it the church.