And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart. On entering any new place they were to select, after due and careful inquiry (Matthew 10:11), a family likely and able to assist them in their evangelistic work.
This "house" they were to endeavour to make the centre of their efforts in that locality. This rule we find continued in the early years of Christianity. In the history of the first Churches, certain "houses" in the different cities were evidently the centres of the mission work there.
We gather this from such expressions in St. Paul's letters as "the Church which is in his house" (comp., too, Acts 16:40, where the house of Lydia was evidently the head-quarters of all missionary work in Philippi and its neighbourhood).