Two people can read the same verse and reach opposite conclusions. Why?
Because one draws meaning out of the text, while the other reads a preconceived idea into it.
This is the difference between exegesis and eisegesis, and it determines whether we hear the voice of God or the echo of our own opinion.
Exegesis vs. Eisegesis
- Exegesis (Greek exēgeisthai, “to draw out”) asks: Who is speaking? To whom? Where? When? Why? What is being said? It draws the meaning from the author’s words and context.
- Eisegesis (Greek eis, “into”) begins with a conclusion and reads it into the text to support it.
Paul warned Timothy to “rightly handle the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15, ESV). The phrase means to cut straight. That is exegesis. Precision, not presumption.
A Clear Example Everyone Can Agree On
Let’s take this verse:
“Then Satan took Him to the holy city and set Him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to Him, ‘If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down, for it is written, “He will command His angels concerning You,” and “On their hands they will bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone.”’”
Matthew 4:5-6, ESV
Here we see Satan himself quoting Scripture (Psalm 91:11–12), but twisting its meaning. This is eisegesis in action. He reads into the verse something that it never said, to support his own agenda.
Eisegesis Example
Satan takes a verse meant to promise God’s protection for those who walk in obedience, and reinterprets it to mean you can test God by putting yourself in danger on purpose.
That’s reading into the text.
He takes a true verse and misapplies it, ignoring the context and purpose for which it was written.
Most Christians would immediately say, “That’s wrong.” Why? Because the context of Psalm 91 doesn’t permit or justify testing God. Jesus Himself responds by doing exegesis.
Exegesis Example
Jesus replies:
“It is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Matthew 4:7, quoting Deuteronomy 6:16, ESV
That’s exegesis, letting one Scripture interpret another, and drawing out the plain meaning from the Word of God.
Jesus doesn’t invent a new interpretation; He pulls the correct understanding out of the text itself and puts it in harmony with the rest of Scripture. Jesus does this his entire ministry.
The Lesson
Even Satan can quote Scripture, but how he uses it shows the difference between truth and distortion.
- Eisegesis uses the Bible to justify what we already want to believe.
- Exegesis lets the Bible correct what we believe.
Every believer can see the difference in this example. Satan’s misuse of Scripture in the temptation narrative shows that quoting a verse is not the same as understanding it.
That’s why exegesis matters, because falsehood can quote the Bible, but truth can only come from reading it as God intended.
Let Scripture Interpret Scripture
When studying Scripture, always allow the Bible to define its own words, ideas, and concepts. Every major term in Scripture has a meaning that can be traced and verified within the text itself. Your task is not to impose meaning from the outside, but to draw it out from where God already revealed it.
Use Scripture to establish the meaning of Scripture. Be able to point to the verses where your understanding comes from. Hold yourself accountable.
Do not overlay modern language, culture, or theology onto the text. Let the text speak for itself.
If you encounter a word like faith, grace, law, or food, ask:
- Where is this term first introduced?
- How is it used throughout the rest of Scripture?
- Does my understanding agree with those patterns?
This is where the Principle of First Mention applies. The first time a word or concept appears in the Bible, it often provides the clearest and most foundational definition of that term. Later uses of the same word build upon, not replace, that original meaning.
For example, the first mention of blood in Genesis 4 establishes it as the marker of life and sacrifice. Every later reference to blood carries that same meaning forward. The same is true of words like covenant, seed, altar, or faith.
To follow this pattern is exegesis, drawing out what God meant.
To ignore it and apply our own modern definitions is eisegesis, reading in what we want it to mean.
Every passage of Scripture must agree with the rest of Scripture. God does not contradict Himself, and His Word cannot be broken (John 10:35). A correct interpretation will always harmonize with the totality of God’s Word. When a passage seems to conflict with another, the issue is not with Scripture but with our understanding of it.
“The unfolding of Your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.”
Psalm 119:130
Example 1: Mark 7 — Did Jesus Declare All Foods Clean?
The claim
Jesus abolished the dietary laws when He “declared all foods clean.”
Exegesis: drawing out the meaning
Who: Pharisees and scribes confronting Yeshua.
Where: Galilee (Mark 7:1).
When: Immediately after the feeding of the multitudes.
Why: They accuse His disciples of eating bread with unwashed hands, violating tradition (Mark 7:2–5).
What: Yeshua responds to their accusation and accuses them of violating the Torah by elevating tradition above God’s commands.
And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
Mark 7:5, ESV
Matthew explains:
“The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders.”
Mark 7:3, ESV
Yeshua responds according to Torah. This was not Torah. It was tradition of the Pharisees.
“You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men”
Mark 7:8, ESV
Yeshua’s judgment is that they are breaking Torah by teaching their traditions as commandment. What commandment are they breaking? We have to bring that answer out of the text of the Torah.
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you.
Deuteronomy 4:2, ESV
“Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”
Deuteronomy 12:32, ESV
Yeshua’s judgment against the pharisees is that they have added this duty to wash hands, which the Torah does not place on the people, thereby breaking the Torah.
“You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”
Mark 7:9, ESV
What is Yeshua teaching in the text. He is answering their judgment against him for his dciples eating bread with unwashed hands, with a judgment on them that they break the Torah with their tradition.
Yeshua follows this judgement up with a Parable spoken to all publicly:
And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
Mark 7:14-15
This parable was confusing, and even his disciples didn’t understand what it meant according to the text, so Yeshua explained the meaning to them privately.
“And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Mark 7:17-22, ESV
Now Yeshua isn’t talking about eating and drinking, he is talking about the heart and the mind. He is talking about “Evil thoughts” like envy, and pride. Yeshua gave a parable and the interpretation that spiritual defilement comes from spiritual thoughts and decisions which are evil, and he gives many examples. Thats what we can pull out of the text.
Yeshua is not arguing against the Dietary guidelines of the Torah, or Contradicting them, he is explaining a deeper teaching of the Torah in regard to Spiritual defilement.
We can also compare this with other parts of the text where he teaches the same thing. He does this elsewhere as well.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Matthew 23, 25-26, ESV
Yeshua is teaching in harmony with himself and all of recorded scripture. He constantly accuses the pharisees of barely understanding the physical and missing the spiritual all together. He instructs them to maintain the physical and prioritize the spiritual.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.“
Matthew 23:27-28, ESV
Yeshua is condemning lawlessness not advocating for it in regard to dietary commands. He would like that we are spiritually and physically clean, the spiritual being the highest priority and the most significant. And this is the teaching of the Torah, not some New Testament invention. Yeshua is simply interpreting the Torah and showing people the part they don’t understand.
Letting the Text Define Food
Pharisee tradition cannot make clean foods unclean. Looking deeper into the text, The word “food” is βρῶμα (brōma), that which is meant to be eaten. Scripture never calls unclean animals “food” (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14).
So Yeshua’s statement means: all food, that which God defines as food, is not made unclean by hands. Food is what is fit to eat. Pork is not food. You can consume it like poison can be consumed, but Scripture does not authorize it as food.
The Bible divides animal flesh into clean and unclean (Leviticus 11). The clean are fit for food. The unclean are not. “Declaring all foods clean” means the things already defined as food, including bread in this context, remain clean despite human tradition.
Eisegesis: reading into the text
Eisegesis redefines “food” by modern culture. “See, Jesus made all unclean animals clean.”
But the text does not say that. The context is bread. Bread is already clean. Yeshua does not redefine food to include unclean animals. The reader practicing eisegesis does that.
This approach:
- Ignores who He was addressing (Pharisees, not Gentiles).
- Ignores the subject (hand-washing before eating bread, not dietary law).
- Ignores that Jesus is rebuking them for adding commandments, then imagines He adds or removes one in response.
- Introduces a new definition of “food” foreign to Scripture.
Even if someone insisted that Jesus cleansed unclean animals, the witness of the rest of Scripture contradicts that reading. Peter, who was present for Mark 7, said years later, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean” (Acts 10:14, ESV). He did not understand his Lord to have abolished the food laws. Near the end of the first century, John still speaks of “every unclean and detestable bird” (Revelation 18:2, ESV).
Exegesis draws out the plain meaning from the text. Eisegesis reads a conclusion into the text and creates conflict with the rest of Scripture. It would be absurd to see Jesus rebuke the Pharisees for adding to the Torah (Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32) and then imagine He removes a commandment in the same moment. Jesus is establishing the Torah, not abolishing it. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill” (Matthew 5:17–19, ESV).
Example 2: Romans 14 — “Nothing Is Unclean in Itself”
The claim
Paul taught that all unclean animals are now clean and believers may eat whatever they wish.
Exegesis: drawing out the meaning
Who: Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles.
Where: Writing to believers in Rome, a mixed Jewish and Gentile congregation.
When: About AD 56–58, decades after the resurrection.
Why: The congregation was divided over fasting practices.
What: Debates about fasting from meat and wine on particular days of the week.
“One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables”
Romans 14:2, ESV
The issue is voluntary abstention from meats on certain days. It was the twice-a-week fast. Not from the Torah.
The Twice-a-Week Fast
By the first century, Pharisees and other devout Jews commonly fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. This custom, though ancient, was never commanded in the Torah.
Yeshua mentions this tradition in His parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector:
“The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’”
Luke 18:11–12 (ESV)
Rabbinic writings (Taanit 12a; Bava Kama 82a) later explain that these days were chosen because they were market and court days, public times when fasting would be noticed, and because Moses was said to have ascended Mount Sinai on a Thursday and descended on a Monday.
According to the Didache, Early believers were aware of this tradition but intentionally distinguished themselves from it.
“But let not your fasts be with the hypocrites, for they fast on the second and fifth days of the week; rather, fast on the fourth and the preparation day.”
Didache 8:1
So when Paul writes:
“One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike… The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord… while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord.”
Romans 14:5–6, ESV
he is referring to these voluntary fasting days mentioned in the text, not to the Sabbath or the appointed feast days of the LORD. Those don’t appear anywhere in the text, and those are commandments of God, not opinions of men.
None of these fast from meats was commanded in the Torah. These were first-century practices that had become points of pride and division. Paul’s goal was not to abolish God’s commandments, but to end the division over man-made traditions.
He was addressing disputes among believers about when to fast, not whether to keep God’s holy days.
Paul’s pastoral correction is simple.
“The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”
Romans 14:17, ESV
“Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God.”
Romans 14:20, ESV
“It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble.”
Romans 14:21, ESV
Pauls teaching is not to redefine Food, or to contradict the Torah definition of Food.
The question in the text is when to eat and when to fast, not what God has defined as food.
Biblical Definition of Food
The word is again brōma. Paul never redefines it to include unclean animals. He never claims the Torah’s definition of what is and is not food have changed. He upholds the Torah and is never found in the “New Testament” eating anything unclean.
Eisegesis: reading into the text
Eisegesis ignores the who, what, when, and why. It imports a modern diet into the passage and concludes, “Paul says all unclean animals are clean, so eat anything.”
Eisegesis ignores the biblical definition of Food and replaces it with a modern gentile pagan culture definition which includes Pork, Shellfish, Shrimp, and whatever else they want to eat in contradiction to biblical dietary guidelines.
This reading:
- Misses the who. A mixed assembly where Jewish believers still kept God’s commandments.
- Misses the what. Disputes over fasting from meats on certain days, not the repeal of dietary law.
- Misses the when. About 25 years after the resurrection
- Missed the Bible definition of Food. Which doesn’t include Pork.
- Misses Paul’s aim. To stop judgmentalism and needless division over human opinions, not to cancel God’s standards.
- Ignores the contradiction with the New Testament text: while Peter still called unclean animals “unclean” (Acts 10:14, ESV).
- Ignores the contradiction with the Old Testament text: Pig is unclean. You shall not eat any of their flesh (Deuteronomy 14:8)
Exegesis shows Paul protecting unity and love in the body. Eisegesis claims he quietly overturned God’s Word without saying so. Peter warned that the unstable twist Paul’s letters “to their own destruction,” and he links that twisting to being “carried away with the error of lawless people” (2 Peter 3:16–17, ESV). So interpreting Paul’s words to remove the standards of obedience is something the New Testament warns about. Eisegesis ignores this.
Example 3: Colossians 2 — “Let No One Judge You”
The claim
Paul told believers that Sabbaths, feasts, and dietary laws were abolished.
Exegesis: drawing out the meaning
Who: Paul, writing to believers in Colossae.
Where: A Greek city influenced by pagan philosophy and pagan mysticism.
When: About AD 60, during Paul’s imprisonment.
Why: The congregation faced two corrupting influences: the circumcision party that preached salvation by works, and pagan ascetics who pushed self-made religion, angel worship, and severe treatment of the body.
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ
Colossians 2:8, ESV
Paul’s warning here is not against the Torah, but rather Human tradition, philosophy, empty deceit, according to the elemental spirits of the world. Thats what the text says.
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,
Colossians 2:11, ESV
Paul affirms their status as Circumcised according to the circumcision of Christ. This is an obvious teaching to inoculate them from the message of the Circumcision party found in the text of Acts 15, and Galatians 2.
“Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.”
Colossians 2:16, ESV
Paul does not say, “Do not keep them.” He says, “Do not let anyone judge you in regard to them.” This passage makes no statement for or against. We must go elsewhere in the text to answer the question of whether or not the feast, sabbaths, and new moons were being kept.
When we ask elsewhere whether the apostles kept these things, Scripture answers plainly. Yeshua kept the Sabbath and taught in the synagogue “as was his custom” (Luke 4:16, ESV). Paul hurried to be in Jerusalem for Pentecost and arranged travel around the appointed times (Acts 20:6, 16, ESV). Paul told a Gentile congregation, “Let us therefore celebrate the festival,” linking unleavened bread with sincerity and truth (1 Corinthians 5:7–8, ESV). The nations will go up for the Feast of Booths in the age to come (Zechariah 14:16–19, ESV). From new moon to new moon and Sabbath to Sabbath all flesh will worship before the Lord (Isaiah 66:23, ESV). That is exegesis. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. And scripture shows that the New Moon, Sabbath, and Festival are keep by Gentiles after the death of Messiah and in the millennial age.
“These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Colossians 2:17, ESV
A shadow is not evil. A shadow reveals the shape of the body. The Torah is filled with shadow pictures that point to Messiah. Messiah is the Word made flesh who tabernacled among us (John 1:14, ESV). If we discard the shadows, we lose the pictures that teach us who He is and what He will do. Joseph, Moses, David, the sacrifices, the priesthood, and the festivals all teach Messiah. The spring feasts outline His first coming. The fall feasts proclaim His return. Many prophecies remain unfulfilled. Why throw away the very teaching tools God gave us for what is still ahead, and yet to be fulfilled?
Paul is not arguing against the Torah in Collossians 2, he is arguing against the threats he identifies in the same paragraph: ascetic rules and man-made regulations.
“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
Colossians 2:20–23, ESV
“Died to the elemental spirits of the world” and “Why as if you were still alive in the world” Paul argues the believer in christ is Dead to the world.
“Elemental spirits of the world” – Not torah, Torah is heavenly origin.
“According to human precepts and teachings” – Not Torah, Torah is written by God
“appearance of wisdom” – Not Torah, Torah is called Wisdom
asceticism and severity to the body – Not Torah
These are the elemental spirits of the world, Not Torah.
Paul is not writing against the Torah or the Sabbath, or against the Festival or the New Moon, he tells us exactly what he is writing against. Pegan Gentile Practices that the Colossians may have been influenced by.
“The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.”
Romans 7:12, ESV
Eisegesis: reading into the text
Eisegesis assumes the Colossians were not keeping Sabbaths or festivals. It then rewrites Paul to mean, “Do not let anyone judge you for not keeping them.” The text never says that. Paul defends believers who are obeying God and warns them not to submit to human judgment, whether Pharisaic legalism or pagan asceticism.
Conclusion: Be Logical. Let the Text Speak.
Mark 7 is about tradition versus Torah, not changing Torah itself.
Romans 14 is about fasting practices, not abolishing food laws.
Colossians 2 is about resisting false judgment, not abandoning God’s appointed times.
Yet modern Christendom, through eisegetical interpretation, has built an entire theology claiming that these three texts abolish the Sabbath and dietary commandments by labeling them “ceremonial.”
But neither the Sabbath nor the dietary guidelines have anything to do with Temple ceremony.
Even if we allowed them to be called “ceremonial,” the passages still fail to support their removal.
These are presented as the clearest proofs that Paul did away with sections of Torah, yet none of them clearly say so.
- In Mark 7, the text itself calls the saying a parable that even the disciples did not understand.
- In Romans 14, Paul addresses disputes over voluntary fasting, not the food laws of Leviticus 11.
- In Colossians 2, Paul warns against pagan asceticism and human philosophy, not God’s commandments.
Nowhere in these chapters is there any direct dialogue about the Torah being changed, redefined, or removed.
If these are the “strongest” passages used to claim the abolition of God’s Law, then the case is weak indeed.
Paul himself did not live according to this supposed “new law.”
He kept the feasts (Acts 18:21), observed the Sabbaths (Acts 17:2), and declared before the council, “I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers” (Acts 28:17).
So ask yourself:
Do you really believe that commandments, eternal, moral, capital-crime level laws, were abolished through a single vague statement, written decades after the resurrection, in letters addressing local disputes, hidden within parables or a context other then the laws themselves?
Does that fit the biblical pattern of how God gives commandments?
How God Gives Law
When God gives His law, He does not do it in secret, and He does not do it through parables or private visions.
He does it in power, clarity, and public witness.
When the Torah was given, Mount Sinai shook. The mountain burned with fire; smoke ascended like a furnace; thunder and lightning split the sky; the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder.
Then the Creator Himself spoke:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
Exodus 20:2 (ESV)
“Thou Shall” and “Thou Shall not…” God is unambiguous when he gives law. The idea that he would give law in such an unambiguous way and then remove it such an ambiguous way is absurd.
No man, prophet, rabbi, or apostle, not even the Messiah, has authority to alter what God declared at Sinai. The very Torah and Prophets tell us this. The Messiah himself tells us this.
“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Matthew 5:17
To fulfill means to bring to full measure, to live out in perfect obedience.
He lived the Torah, not to remove it, but to show how it is rightly kept.
Saying fulfill means to obey and abolish, is Eisegesis, reading into the text your desire to abolish the Torah. It’s a contradiction within the own users. “I came not to abolish torah, but to obey and abolish some parts.” It doesn’t make sense on any level, then again if you already know what you believe then you don’t need to make sense of the Word of God, the Word of God is not for you.
It’s for the Humble workman, with a contrite heart, working out his salvation with fear and trembling.
Final Thought
Exegesis lets the Word of God speak for itself.
Eisegesis silences that voice and replaces it with human tradition.
If our interpretation requires us to ignore context, redefine words, or imagine that God silently changed His commandments, then our interpretation is wrong.
Let us be logical.
Let us be faithful.
Let the text speak.
We can argue about this now, but when Messiah returns to establish his Kingdom the Torah will go out from Zion.
“For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
Micah 4:2
