Verse 12
And thus, sinning against the brethren, and wounding their conscience when it is weak, ye sin against Christ!
Exclamation points have been used in this and the preceding verse to indicate the epic nature of these pronouncements.
Sinning against the brethren ... ye sin against Christ ... Whatever is done to the church, even in the person of its weakest and most insignificant members (as men count insignificance), is done to Christ. Paul learned this on the Damascus road, and he never forgot it. Was it right to override the scruples of young and weak Christians by indulgence of the appetite for meat? A million times NO! To do so was an unmitigated sin against the Redeemer himself. Paul did not require the support of any opinions from Jerusalem to add any weight to such a decree. This principle is eternally binding, forever true, and as wide in its application as the world itself.
Despite such an apostolic order, however, Paul diligently strove to evoke a feeling of tenderness in the conceited boasters of their "knowledge." The two words repeatedly stressed in the passage are weak (5 times) and BROTHER (4 times). "These should have evoked tenderness and love, but received only the callous disregard of a misguided knowledge."[28]
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