Before digging into the contextual nuances of the three related Gospel stories, we need to first look at the parable as a whole. The Wedding/Great Banquet parable originates form the Q source and is later modified by the Lukan, Matthean, and Gospel of Thomas authors. Each author modifies this particular story according to their particular agenda but we will refer to that later. The parable is organized in three main sections; person provides a banquet, invitees make excuses, servants invite random people off of the street. White also tells us that the parable derived from Q “reflects the experience of early followers of the Jesus movement who are meeting resistance to their message about Jesus and beginning to turn to others” (Pg. 220).

As we see in the Lukan portrayal of the Banquet parable, there is a focus on the marginalized which is a common theme through the Gospel of Luke. The Lukan adaptation also has an emphasis on the gentile mission which is also a prominent idea in the Luke-Acts motif.

The Matthean adaptation of the parable takes on an entirely different portrayal of the original Q story. Although it somewhat parallels the Luke story, it contains idiosyncrasies that allude to different meanings. The Gospel of Matthew has an emphasis on Jewish tradition and on many occasions parallels Jewish scripture more frequently than any of the Gospels. The author of Matthew changes from a “Great Banquet” to a “Wedding Banquet,” and as White tells us is alluding to a prominent eschatological metaphor in Jewish Apocalyptic tradition (Pg. 221). One prominent difference in the Matthean story from the Lukan story is at the end where a man is killed for not wearing proper garments; this too alludes to Jewish tradition, according to Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai and rabbinic tradition, one must always be prepared and wear proper garments and not just while attending weddings (Pg. 222).