Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
No wallet (mh phran). Better than "scrip." It can be either a travelling or bread bag. Deissmann (Light from the Ancient East, pp. 108f.) shows that it can mean the beggar's collecting bag as in an inscription on a monument at Kefr Hanar in Syria: "While Christianity was still young the beggar priest was making his rounds in the land of Syria on behalf of the national goddess." Deissmann also quotes a pun in the Didaskalia=Const. Apost. 3, 6 about some itinerant widows who said that they were not so much xhrai (spouseless) as phrai (pouchless). He cites also Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida III. iii. 145: "Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, wherein he puts alms for oblivion."
For the labourer is worthy of his food (aciov gar o ergathv thv trofhv autou). The sermon is worth the dinner, in other words. Luke in the charge to the seventy (Luke 10:7) has the same words with misqou (reward) instead of trofhv (food). In 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul quotes Luke's form as scripture (h grafh) or as a well-known saying if confined to the first quotation. The word for workman here (ergathv) is that used by Jesus in the prayer for labourers (Matthew 9:38). The well-known Didachˆ or Teaching of the Twelve (xiii) shows that in the second century there was still a felt need for care on the subject of receiving pay for preaching. The travelling sophists added also to the embarrassment of the situation. The wisdom of these restrictions was justified in Galilee at this time. Mark (Mark 6:6-13) and Luke (Luke 9:1-6) vary slightly from Matthew in some of the details of the instructions of Jesus.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Mark 6:8
Mark 6:9
Luke 9:3
Luke 10:7
Luke 22:35
1 Corinthians 9:14
1 Timothy 5:18
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