But meat.... — By showing that the eating is a matter of indifference, the Apostle introduces his reason for yielding to the weakness of another. If the weakness involved a matter of our vital relation to God, then to yield would be wrong. But meat will not (future) affect our relationship to God. The concluding words of this verse are inverted in later MSS., as in the English version, and the better order is: “Neither, if we eat not, do we lose anything in our relation to God; nor, if we eat, do we gain anything in our relation to Him.”

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