20. For—"For the sake of"
meat destroy not the work of God—(See on Ro 14:15). The apostle sees in whatever tends to violate a brother's conscience the incipient destruction of God's work (for every converted man is such)—on the same principle as "he that hateth his brother is a murderer" (1Jo 3:15).
All things indeed are pure—"clean"; the ritual distinctions being at an end.
but it is evil to that man—there is criminality in the man
who eateth with offence—that is, so as to stumble a weak brother.