Most Christians sit through years of sermons but never learn how to actually read the Bible for themselves — how to tell the difference between poetry and law, how to wrestle with a prophetic text, or how to let a biblical narrative reshape the way they see the world. BibleDojo exists to close that gap.^1
Built by Basil Tech, a Christian technology nonprofit based in the San Francisco Bay Area, BibleDojo is a free, interactive web platform that teaches hermeneutics — the art of interpreting Scripture — through a gamified belt system inspired by martial arts. Users progress from white belt to black belt across different biblical genres (Law, Story, Poetry, Letters, Prophecy, and more), completing click-through trainings that challenge them to examine passages closely and think critically about what they're reading. It's seminary-level content made accessible to everyone, with curriculum developed by Bible professors Dr. Dru Johnson (founder of the Center for Hebraic Thought) and Dr. Dominick Hernández (Talbot School of Theology, Biola University).^2
BibleDojo was born from project lead Sang Tian's own frustration: "I realized that I grew up in the church for almost 20 years and still didn't know how to read and understand the first page." A Carnegie Mellon CS graduate and former senior software engineer at Dropbox, Tian left his tech career to work full-time as a "digital missionary" with Basil Tech — the same nonprofit behind the Read Scripture app associated with BibleProject. The team includes designers from Apple and MIT, and is co-led by Kevin Kim (CEO, also executive director of Crazy Love Ministries) and Matthew Chan.^3
Why Christians Love BibleDojo: Dr. Dru Johnson, who helped develop the curriculum, describes what the team has accomplished: BibleDojo's creators have "found a way to digitally ritualize many of the best classroom learning techniques into an app."^3 Johnson adds that the real excitement comes in community: "It's one thing to think that you are learning the skills, but it's another thing when you check it out with other people… and you realize that you're both seeing something you've never been able to see before. That is how I got excited about reading Scripture. And we hear from users that it's exciting for them as well."^3 Rather than telling you what the Bible says, BibleDojo teaches you how to discover it — and pastors are encouraged to use it with their congregations for group study.
Platforms: Web (any modern browser) Pricing: Free (donation-supported)
