for our gospel came to you not with mere words but also with power and with the holy Spirit, with ample conviction on our part (you know what we were to you, for your own good),
My proud boast is the testimony of my conscience that holiness and godly sincerity, not worldly cunning but the grace of God, have marked my conduct in the outside world and in particular my relations with you.
If I 'appeal to the interests of men,' then, it is with the fear of the Lord before my mind. What I am is plain to God without disguise, plain also, I trust, to your own conscience.
I disown those practices which very shame conceals from view; I do not go about it craftily; I do not falsify the word of God; I state the truth openly and so commend myself to every man's conscience before God.