What did Paul turn his back on to preach the gospel?
Paul turned his back on everything—his material wealth, his high standing in the Judaistic religion, and likely his wife and family—to take the Gospel to pagan, ungodly, immoral Gentiles. He counted his former advantages as nothing for the sake of preaching Christ.
Les explains that Paul probably was totally sold out to God. Paul left all of his material wealth behind him and counted it but dumb in order to take the Gospel. Because Paul was a member of the Sanhedrin, and such members had to have family and know how to deal with family problems, Les believes Paul had a wife and family. As a result of this tremendous being sold out to Christ, he probably lost his wife, who probably turned against him, and possibly even a son. But whatever the case, he turned his back on everything in order to take the Gospel to these pagan, ungodly, immoral Gentiles. Later, the more he loved the Corinthians, the less he was loved by them.