“And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse:”
These were his instructions: take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bread, no bag, no money in your belts — the travel instructions are a theology of dependence: the disciples go with minimal resources, trusting that the communities they enter will provide for them. The staff only — no provisions, no emergency supplies, no financial security. The minimalist travel is not asceticism for its own sake but dependence on God's provision through hospitable communities. The same God who provided manna in the wilderness provides through willing households in the Galilean towns.
Church Fathers on Mark 6:8
The Lord not only preached in the cities, but also in villages, that we may learn not to despise little things, nor always to seek for great cities, but to sow the word of the Lord in abandoned and lowly villages.
Now our kind and merciful Lord and Master did not grudge His servants and their disciples His own virtues, and as He Himself had healed every sickness and every infirmity, so also He gave the same power to His disciples.
Or else; according to Matthew, the Lord immediately subjoined, 'The workman is worthy of his meat,' [Matt 10:19] which sufficiently proves why He forbade their carrying or possessing such things; not because they were not necessary, but because He sent them in such a way as to shew, that they were due to them from the faithful, to whom they preached the Gospel.