1 Corinthians 7:18

κέκληται אABDFG. Rec. ἐκλήθη.

18. περιτετμημένος τις. Many Jews, we are assured, were ashamed of their Judaism, and were desirous to obliterate all the outward signs of it. (1Ma 1:15.) This feeling would receive an additional impulse from conversion to Christianity. But though St Paul evidently considered that Jews, when converted, were at liberty to dispense with the observance of the Jewish law (ch. 1 Corinthians 9:21), he here intimates equally clearly his conviction that they had a perfect right to continue in its observance if they thought fit to do so. τις, according to many editors, does not involve a question: ‘(Suppose) a man is called who has been circumcised.’

ἐν�. That the Gentiles were free from the obligation of the Jewish law was decided in the conference held at Jerusalem (Acts 15) and after some wavering (Galatians 2:11-21) it was set at rest, principally by the courage and clear-sightedness of the great Apostle of the Gentiles.

κέκληται. It is easy to see how the rec. ἐκλήθη was substituted here. It was not observed that in the former place it was connected with a perf. participle, and so the change of tense seemed a solecism. But it is strictly accurate. ‘A man was called who has been circumcised. Let him not become uncircumcised. Or he has been called when in a state of uncircumcision. Let him not be circumcised.’