Acts 17:23 “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an alter with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.”
When I was in college, we HAD to take Old and New Testament. One semester of each. There was no getting around it. I honestly don’t remember much but when I read Acts 17:23, I remembered us discussing it. Paul was on fire when he started preaching to the crowd. He got their attention quick, fast and in a hurry. But shortly into his preaching he changed a pronoun. He started talking about God (I want to say in the feminine and not the masculine) but he lost his audience. He was doing great. He was speaking to the Greeks by invitation. He didn’t mention Moses, Jesus, nothing Jewish because they had no context. He even uses their own literature to prove his point; he knew the unknown God. He did have converts that day. So it wasn’t a total loss.
Has this happened to you? It sure has happened to me. We offend, insult, or hurt someone’s feels not because we meant to. “It isn’t what you say but how you say it.” Inflection and tone being chief among them. “Plain talk is easily understood.” But a lot of times plain talk will not help you win friends and influence people, if this is your goal. My bio-sister can say “good morning” to you and you feel like you’ve been cussed out.
I feel like Jesus had this down pat. He had some hard lessons for us but people flocked to him to hear the good news and to accept salvation.
Poetry & More 
Everyday someone seems to take something I say the wrong way. The sentences I seem to add to statement s the most are “it wasn’t a criticism” and “I’m asking not telling”
It makes me feel like I need to be more thoughtful. But in work scrutiny is necessary. At home if I have to say that, I yield.
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