Luke 10:7

The context

Luke 10 sends out seventy or seventy-two disciples, depending on the manuscript tradition, with instructions about greeting, peace, healing and the nearness of the kingdom. Verse 7 tells them to remain in one house rather than move from door to door, and gives the reason: the laborer deserves his wages.

What it establishes

The saying ties support to work rather than to status or eloquence. Those who carry the message are to be fed by those who receive it, and the messenger is not to shop for better hospitality. It concerns the economics of mission and the missionary's posture at once.

What it does not establish

It does not establish a permanent funding system. The setting is a specific, short-term itinerant mission with specific rules. Nothing in the verse fixes a salary, requires a congregation to support a teacher. It is a mission charge before it is a financial principle.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• How can you take the gospels as inspired when they don't even make that claim for themselves?
• I only trust the words of Jesus. Why should I accept Paul and the rest of the New Testament?

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.