The readings today are a testimony of simplicity. The general theme seems to be that the word of God is all that one needs.  The word of God is true and needs nothing else beside it.  In the reading from Proverbs the petitioner asks only for the truth of God and for just enough to survive—riches makes one lazy and complacent and want makes one angry, but the necessities and the word of God are all one truly needs.  Like the Psalm states, the word of God will light the pathway. It is truth and light and better than riches.

The Gospel proves the point. The disciples are sent out with nothing – no food, no money, not even a change of clothes.  But they are equipped with the word of God, and with that they can work miracles.  They can heal the sick, and their own needs are taken care of on the road.  They are even a step beyond the reading from Proverbs—the point there was that with the bare necessities for survival, the word of God was everything else.  Here in the Gospel the disciples do not even have the bare necessities for survival.  All they have is the word of God, and that is sufficient.