Loading...A few weeks ago, I came across this. [show paper] It’s a graphic explaining the difference between “exegesis” and “eisegesis.” Have any of you heard either of these words before? I had heard of exegesis, but not eisegesis, and now that I’ve seen this graphic, I have a better understanding of how different people approach the way they read scripture.
The easiest definitions for these words are that exegesis is a process used to draw the meaning out of the text. In other words, “What did the author mean?” This takes a bit of work to determine.
Eisegesis is the act of reading meaning into the text. In other words, asking “What do I want this text to mean?”
In this graphic, which you will find posted in Board Hall on one of the bulletin boards, they break down the process of both by pointing out five points to help anyone recognize how they read scripture.
They identify the different approaches by focusing on these questions: What’s the main question; What’s the Focus; What is the starting point; What is the Goal; and finally, What is the Danger?
Ultimately, these categories identify that Exegesis is studying in a way that Scripture speaks to the reader—it helps the reader understand scripture more accurately, but it can still include mistakes.
Eisegesis is reading in a way that makes Scripture speak FOR the reader—it might confirm an idea already held, or make scripture say things it does not say.
In other words, drawing meaning out of the text is a deeper reading of Scripture because it takes more than just the words to understand what the author was trying to say. It is paying attention to the political, social, and religious context; it might be about who the author is and what their intent in writing was. Grammar and history play key roles. Plus, when the translation occurred, matters, as religious scholars continue to learn. That’s exegesis.
In eisegesis, the reader might be looking for scripture to mean what they want it to mean. Perhaps to confirm or deny a belief.
I invite you to look at this graphic later. It explains the differences further and provides questions anyone can ask that can lead to deeper meaning of any text.
You are probably wondering why I have been talking about how to study the bible. Well, there are some stories in the bible that stand out as those that just might need less eisegesis and more exegesis. Today’s parable is one.
I have a feeling that many of us were taught as we learned to read the bible, to do our best to figure out who Jesus is talking about in the parables. We want to know where we might fit. We might ask the text, “which of the characters best represents me? Which character is God? Who are the faithful ones? The unfaithful? Which is Jesus?” We want to create parallels to our own lives to “make it make sense.” We might think it’s easy to assign someone as a specific character in a parable when, in fact, it is anything but.
It’s easy to think that a king must be God, or that all Jewish leaders were against Jesus, so they are the enemy. So often it seems that non-Jews or the Gentiles were lost, or that any son that was mentioned is a stand-in for Jesus.
The Gospel appointed for today is messy and harsh. It is full of death and destruction. There is violence and disrespect. We have been led to believe, and this was confirmed by many of the commentaries I read for today, that the king represents God, and that the banquet is an invitation to be in the presence of God. Those who refused to attend the banquet are refusing God’s generosity. That the man without the wedding clothes is showing disrespect to the king, therefore, that man is shunning God, so God (or is it the king?) tosses him into the darkness.
This story is horrible. This king is out of control. He has no tolerance. And while the people who end up attending the banquet are not people with pedigrees, they are the servants and the poor, who have witnessed the murders and burning of their cities. They are not there because they want to be there, I suspect they are there to avoid the consequences of what might happen if they were not. And who knows the real reason the man is not wearing wedding garb. That is still no way to treat anyone who has been told to be there.
If the king is standing in for God, he is not the God I trust or know. I bet you agree with me. God would not wreak havoc or death on people just because they did not show up for a party. God would continue to invite them, wait for them, not demand their presence or threaten their existence. God would celebrate them when they arrive, no matter how early or late.
I believe in a loving God. A forgiving God. A life-giving God. And the king in this story is definitely not any of these things.
There just has to be another reason this story is here. It is the third story in a row, in the past three Sundays, where what Jesus tells feels icky. Stories that might make anyone wonder why they should follow the God Jesus speaks about, if that’s what is happening here.
To put it into context, we are in the part of Matthew’s Gospel that tells what Jesus was up to after riding into Jerusalem on a donkey on what we call Palm Sunday. He was coming to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, as was his custom.
It’s still early in the week, and Jesus has been hanging out in the temple. He’s turned over tables to protest vendors taking advantage of pilgrims. His teaching has been challenged by temple religious leaders. He tells stories about landowners and vineyards, fathers and sons, slaves and tenants. None of these stories seem to have a happy ending.
The Pharisees and other religious leaders just want Jesus gone.
I know I’ve talked about my dad’s goofy, but poignant, sayings in the past, and there’s one that fits well today. Dad will say, “hindsight is 20/20.” It is far easier to look back at something that was complex and see it more clearly after time has elapsed.
We can read scripture that way. We can understand more clearly over time. We might change our minds as we learn more or recognize that no harm was intentionally done when we were taught something different about a story when we were young. We can choose to cling to something that feels a certain way or be open to seeing it in a new way.
This parable is icky. And over the course of time people have tried to make it palatable. But, in all honesty, I think there has been so much eisegesis done to try to understand the point Jesus was trying to make, that scholars have tried to place a meaning into the text, that we might have been missing the point.
And to find the point, our exegesis is necessary. We need to look for the answers to the questions. We need to know what the author meant; we need to trust the scholarship behind the context, the grammar, the history, and the intent of the author. Of course, there might still be mistakes in the data, but if we start reading text with a goal of understanding the story as accurately as we can, we have a better chance of discerning the point.
The depth of these stories can be found when we learn that the Gospel of Matthew was written after the destruction of the Jewish temple. The people are grieving. Their spiritual home has been destroyed and their faith is jeopardized. Also, the author of this Gospel is using this story to help us understand that Jesus isn’t talking about a king and a wedding feast. He’s talking about what is coming at the end of this holy, holy week. There is something apocalyptic in it.
An idea hit me unexpectedly on Monday. I then spent much of this week considering if this idea was exegesis or eisegesis. Did this idea that I’m about to share with you come from drawing meaning out of the text, or am I reading a meaning into the text?
Here’s what popped into my head on Monday. The man at the end of the story—the man who is not wearing the appropriate wedding garb—is Jesus.
I know, I know. That changes everything. I wouldn’t even share my idea with you, however, if I did not read two commentaries suggesting the exact same thing.
In 2020, Debi Thomas wondered, ‘What if the “God” figure in the parable is the one guest who refuses to accept the terms of the tyrannical king? The one guest who decides not to “wear the robe” of forced celebration and coerced hilarity, the one guest whose silent resistance leaves the king himself “speechless,” and brings the whole sham feast to a thundering halt? The one brave guest who decides he’d rather be “bound hand and foot,” and cast into the outer darkness of Gethsemane, Calvary, the cross, and the grave, than accept the authority of a violent, loveless sovereign?’ [1]
Lutheran Pastor Micah Krey put it this way: “A banquet does not automatically tell us that we are witnessing the generosity of God. We need to watch what the host does with the people before him. …
Then consider the guest who is thrown out.
He is questioned by someone with authority over him. He is speechless. He is bound and removed.
Soon, Jesus will stand before authorities who question him. Before the high priest, he remains silent until directly charged to answer. Before Pilate, he does not answer the accusations brought against him. He is bound, mocked, stripped, dressed in a scarlet robe, and eventually led away to be crucified.”[2]
Jesus represented anarchy to some political people and to some high-ranking religious men. He pushed against the policies, he redefined the interpretation of laws, he taught love over fear. When Jesus entered Jerusalem that week, it was his last opportunity to tell others about the depth of God’s love.
And there were some who found that teaching dangerous. They saw his love as subversive. They, as I said before, wanted him gone.
Jesus did not follow the king or the politics. Jesus used the Torah to remind the Jewish people what God was calling them to do: to Love God and to love one another as they are loved by God. Those attitudes and behaviors looked like Jesus was rebelling against people in power. And he was, because some of the people in power were abusing their power, their authority, and behaved like the king in this story.
Someone had to show up to the party who did not follow the rules. Someone who wouldn’t put on the wedding garb. Someone willing to be tossed out into the dark “where there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This was Jesus telling a truth that many did not want to hear. He was preparing his followers through hyperbolic storytelling, providing them insight into corrupt people in power and what those people were capable of doing.
Our part in this story is to be the audience, to learn and recognize the depth of Jesus’s commitment to love and that we are called to respond.
What does our response look like?
According to Debi Thomas: “The parables of Jesus are meant to afflict the comfortable. The parables are meant to show us who God is, and who God isn't. So. May we embrace the loving God who is rather than the vindictive God who isn’t. May we choose affliction over apathy, even when it costs us a spot in the palace. May we refuse sham banquets while our cities burn and our streets run with blood. May we always reject the invitations of heartless kings. And may we, like Christ the unrobed guest, disarm all powers that bind God's children, and render the world's oppressors speechless in his name.”[3]
What do you think? Exegesis or Eisegesis?
Amen.
[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2777-the-god-who-isn-t
[2] https://micahkrey.com/2026/10/04/matthew-221-14-20th-sunday-after-pentecost-october-11-2026/
[3] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/2777-the-god-who-isn-t
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