Audio Bibles for the Unreached

Thank you for considering giving permission for The Discipleship Platform (ethne.tech) to use your valuable audio Bible translations and partnering with us to get them to those who have never been to church.

Our ministry formed in the Middle East because we saw a tremendous need. Disciple makers in hard-to-reach communities were unable to get and use Audio Bibles. There, we discovered the Kingdom impact when people who had previously never touched a Bible received audio Scripture from a trusted relationship and in their spoken language.

What We Offer You

Our hope and prayer is that by partnering together, we will see:

  • New Audiences - Your audio Bibles will be used by people who have never heard the Word of God in their language and will then share it with others in their community.

  • More Printed Bibles Purchased - We have seen that when people start with a specific audio Bible translation, it becomes their preferred translation. With each audio Bible translation a button in the app lets our users know a printed Bible is available for this translation and where to buy it according to the link provided by your ministry.

  • Scripture Engagement Campaigns Made By You - Your ministry knows this translation and this people the best. If you are the text and audio publisher, we will work with you for free to develop offline and/or online Scripture engagement campaigns based on the topics, passages and schedule you choose.

  • Reports of Use and Impact - we report on the number of chapters downloaded, engaged and shared as well as stories of impact if our users provided them.

How the Audio Bible is Used

Most audio Scripture is already freely available in apps and websites, but the user needs to pay for the data to stream or download the audio files. However, The Discipleship Platform makes it free to get audio Scripture and share it without the Internet.

There are some important and possibly different ways we use audio to serve people who have never been to church and live in challenging environments. Please note that these use cases are not for Bible text. Let’s take a look…

Offline Use in a Village

Have you ever been in a village and wanted to use your cell phone data but there is no service? With The Discipleship Platform, church planters can use the audio Bible without the Internet. We make it easy to download the audio Bible one book at a time, so that disciple-makers can download what they need before they travel. Of course, users of our apps can still stream audio files online as well.

Permissions A and B

Share a Single Audio Passage in Evangelism

The most effective way to share audio Scripture with people who have never been to church is through relationships. This is even more important in areas hostile to the Gospel. Seekers need to take small steps with Scripture before they download a Bible app or get a printed Bible. With an app from The Discipleship Platform, a disciple-maker can share a single audio passage in evangelism.

Permission C: Only one file at a time can be shared. Copyright information and your website are in the file’s metadata and visible in media players.

Users without a Smartphone

We estimate about 30% of those in the ministries we serve do not have a smartphone. A disciple-maker can use our smartphone app and put an entire book of an audio Bible onto the memory card for a basic phone.


Permission D: This can only be done with one small collection of Audio files at a time. Copyright information and your website are in the file’s metadata and visible in media players.

Users Who Cannot Afford Data to Download

Many people might have a smartphone, but they cannot afford a data plan to download an entire audio Bible. Let's say we are in the same room and we both have an app from The Discipleship Platform. In this example, I have the New Testament Audio, and you do not. We both open our apps, and I can share the audio from the New Testament from my app to yours at Wi-Fi speeds without touching the Internet.

Permission E: Users must be in the room and authenticate to initiate app-to-app sharing. All Audio stays within the app's private folder.

Receive the Audio Bible in less than 1 minute

Now let's say you are at a meeting of 50 leaders in a distant village, and you want to give them the app and the entire Audio Bible. That would take a lot of time for them to download on one Wi-Fi network. Instead, you can make 50 memory cards and give them to these key leaders. They install the App, and the App imports the ZIP with the entire audio Bible inside it.

Permission F: This ZIP is locked and cannot be opened without advanced technical tools and knowledge.

For Bible Studies

Finally, some of our local ministry partners have found adding Bible study questions to a small set of selected audio Bible passages effective. These partners from your country record the Bible study questions and they will attach them before and/or after the audio Bible passage. This keeps the Bible study as one file to be used together in discipleship groups.


Permission G: In the audio there is clear separation between your audio Bible and the questions. Copyright information and your website are shown with it.

This covers our use cases to serve disciple makers who are bringing the Word of God in audio form to those who have never heard it before. If you have any questions, ideas or would like to see the template of our agreement, please let us know.