Matthew 10:9-10: Our Lord's advice for the journey is not "practical" in the usual sense but consists in a complete reliance of Providence. No need for gold, silver, copper in their girdle-pouches ("money in your purses"); nor food-satchel nor warm clothing (cf. Mark 6:9) but barefoot and unarmed ("nor a staff") Mark 6:8-9, allows shoes and a staff.

It would be difficult to prove that Mark and Matthew are speaking of different varieties of shoe and staff. It is more probable that the general sense, and not the actual words, is preserved by each evangelist and worded according to his scope (cf. Augustine's words quoted on 9:18-19). Thus Matthew's atmosphere is of complete detachment, Mark is more practical; the substance of each is the same, viz. no undue anxiety but reliance upon Providence.  The supernatural powers of the Apostles cannot be sold or bought, 8, but for the labor involved in their exercise, and in the preaching of the Gospel they deserve their upkeep (cf. Luke 10:7; 1 Timothy 5:17-18; Galatians 6:6; 1 Corinthians 9:13-14). Providence will see that this is provided.

Matthew 10:11-15: Arriv[ing] at his destination, the Apostle, having found a respectable ("worthy") house, should lodge there until he leaves the town lest he appear restless or fickle or over-particular in material things. "Peace!" (salom) is the common oriental greeting, but on Apostolic lips it takes a religious significance; it is efficacious if its recipients be worthy. In Biblical times, "peace" is the sum of all blessings.

This Apostolic blessing (like God's own word, cf. Isaiah 55:11.) cannot be robbed of its intrinsic power by the unworthiness of the person addressed; it returns to the giver that he may confer the rejected blessing on some worthy house. The despised blessing even becomes a curse: the last Judgement will show that such rejection of the good news of the Kingdom is a crime greater even than the typical wickedness of "the cities of the plain", Genesis 19. Meanwhile, the Apostle will show symbolically that the unworthy house, though evidently Jewish, is no better than pagan territory.

The gesture of "shaking the dust from the feet" is exclusively Jewish, practiced on return to the Holy Land after journeys on the "impure" soil of paganism. It is ironical that the gesture should be turned against Jews (cf. also Paul in Acts 13:51); the Holy Land itself is not proof against uncleanness. It becomes clear that the old order of a confident national religion is passing; cf. 3:9.