Matthew 10:11 Commentary and Bible Study

The disciples would also need to accept hospitality, and it was right for them to do so; they were worthy of it. When they came into a new city or town – most people lived in communities, and it was these they should focus on – they were to seek out a worthy person to abide with. This instruction was shorthand. They were not to stay with the first person they met, but to consider the response of different people to their message, and stay with those who received it and who were sympathetic to it. It was these sympathetic people who would be given the privilege of giving hospitality to the apostles, and they too would receive a reward for doing so. In the same was the colt provided at the triumphal entry, so God would instruct his own to give freely to the apostles. Nor were they to seek to share the burden among different people (Broadus), but they were to stay with the same one they started with, until they left that community. (Luke says in his record of Christ’s instruction to the seventy, who were sent out later: ‘Go not from house to house’ (Luke 10:7). This is obviously not a general instruction but is in the context of accepting hospitality, but it makes clear the instruction. Don’t go fishing around for the best lodgings, among those who are sympathetic. If you enter into a house and you are received, you don't hop about while you are in that town. You see through your mission. There you are satisfied; your content.Just as God provided the disciples with food and clothing if they needed, so he would provide them with lodging, and he would choose who they should stay with. That would be revealed to them through their ordinary enquiry, but they must see themselves as following a path predetermined by God.