Paul denies that he took the approach of trying to please man. Such an approach might have been expected, given the widespread practice of the travelling philosophers of the Graeco-Roman world, but would have contradicted the nature of the gospel. Paul firmly resisted this approach and sought not to please men but God.
4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.