That is the way that I also seek in everything the approval of all men, not aiming at my own profit, but at that of the many, in the hope that they may be saved.
See, I am now for the third time prepared to visit you, but I will not be a dead weight to you. I desire not your money, but yourselves; for children ought not to put by for their parents, but parents for their children.
You are imagining, all this time, that we are making our defense at your bar. In reality it is as in God's presence and in communion with Christ that we speak; but, dear friends, it is all with a view to your progress in goodness.
For is it man's favour or God's that I aspire to? Or am I seeking to please men? If I were still a man-pleaser, I should not be Christ's bondservant.
for they still try to prevent our preaching to the Gentiles so that they may find salvation. They thus continually fill up the measure of their own sins, and God's anger in its severest form has overtaken them.