1For you yourselves know, brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain, 2but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God in much conflict. 3For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception. 4But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak—not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts. 5For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness), 6nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others), when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ. 7But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.
8Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us. 9For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God. 10You are witnesses with God how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe. 11As you know, we exhorted, comforted, and implored every one of you, as a father does his own children, 12to the end that you should walk worthily of God, who calls you into his own Kingdom and glory.
13For this cause we also thank God without ceasing that when you received from us the word of the message of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, God’s word, which also works in you who believe. 14For you, brothers, became imitators of the assemblies of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus; for you also suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even as they did from the Jews 15who killed both the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and drove us out, and don’t please God, and are contrary to all men, 16forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sins always. But wrath has come on them to the uttermost.
17But we, brothers, being bereaved of you for a short season in presence, not in heart, tried even harder to see your face with great desire, 18because we wanted to come to you—indeed, I, Paul, once and again—but Satan hindered us. 19For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Isn’t it even you, before our Lord Jesus at his coming? 20For you are our glory and our joy.
Paul did not demean his call to be a servant of Jesus, he, nonetheless was thankful for his life as a Jew who was reared in the Pharisaic tradition according to Phil 3:5, 6; Gal 1:14; and 2 Cor 11:22. This background was invaluable in causing him to think and express himself in Old Testament categories and images, as well as the knowledge he had of the Hebrew Bible, manifested in approximately ninety references. As well, this Jewish background is seen in his understanding of the unity of God's acts in the Old Testament and the Christian gospel (Rom 1:2) in preparation for Jesus the Messiah.
In agreement with this being part of his life, his influence by Greek literary works was also of much value to him as well. That the apostle knew the Greek language and had Greek training in rhetoric, philosophy, and literature is evident. Though he may not have been a professional rhetor (orator), his mode of expression reveals, at least at times, the influence of Greek rhetoric. There are minor examples of the Cynic-Stoic manner of argument called diatribe, a discourse conducted in a conversational style with a fictitious opponent; sentence structure in a diatribe is short, questions are interjected; antithesis and parallel phrases often punctuate the development (cf Rom 2:1-20 and 1 Cor 9:2). Formerly many scholars considered such terms as "Lord," "Son of God," "flesh and spirit," "mystery," to the Hellenistic background of Paul, and Hellenistic Gnosticism is ascribed his use of "Adam" and "Man," the redeemer myth, pre-existence, etc. However, it is now recognized that these ideas were prevalent in first-century Palestinian Judaism. 3) Since Paul also lived 10 years in a Hellenistic climate, before his first mission, in such centers as Damascus, Tarsus, and Antioch, rather than the agrarian life of Palestine, Paul used images from the city culture, especially the Hellenistic one. He uses Greek political terminology (Phil 1:27; 3:20; Eph 2:19); alludes to Greek games (Phil 2:16; 3:14; 1 Cor 9:24-27; 2 Cor 4:8-9); uses Greek commercial terms (Phlm 18; Col 2:14) and legal terminology. (Gal 3:15; 4:1-2; Rom 7:1-3) and refers to the Hellenistic slave trade (1 Cor 7:22; Rom 7:14) and celebration in honor of the emperor (1 Thess 2:19).