Rev. Douglas Bratt is a Minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After serving Christian Reformed churches in Iowa, Michigan and Maryland, he retired in July, 2024. He enjoys spending time with his grandchildren, reading good literature, and watching televised sports in his free time.
Doug began writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website in 2006 and started writing weekly in 2012.
Romans 8:1-11
Commentary
Proper 10A
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson brings to mind a ceramic plate that I received for serving on the Calvin University’s Board of Trustees’ Student Life Committee. Its multi-layered motto of Calvin’s Student Life ministry surrounds a lovely image of the symbol of the Spirit that is a dove whose wings are outstretched. The plate reads “Learning…
Romans 7:15-25a
Commentary
Proper 9A
Both Benjamin Franklin and George Washington reportedly quoted Edwin Sandys’ insistence, “Honesty is the best policy.” Yet this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson may make its proclaimers wonder if honesty is really the best policy. Some of Jesus’ followers like to quote Scriptural passages such as Psalm 38:18 as insisting confession is “good for the soul.” Yet…
Romans 6:12-23
Commentary
Proper 8A
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson invites Jesus’ friends to think of both sin and salvation in perhaps fresh ways. In it, after all, Paul reminds Rome’s Christians that sin is not, as some Christians assume, just an activity. Sin is also a power. What’s more, as the apostle shows in Romans 6, salvation is not just…
Romans 6:1b-11
Commentary
Proper 7A
There are enormous stakes involved in this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. It, after all, deals with matters of life and death. But not just life and death in the conventional sense. Paul also speaks of life and death at their deepest levels. He names and describes the life that leads to death, as well as the…
Romans 5:1-8
Commentary
Proper 6A
At the beginning of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson Paul carries forward the theme with which he ended last Sunday’s Lesson: Jesus’ followers’ “justification” (4:23). In verses 1-2a the apostle writes, “Since we have been justified [dikaiothentes*] through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [prosagogen]…
Romans 4:13-25
Commentary
Proper 5A
In his May 21. 2026 blog on the Yale University Press blog, the philosopher James K.A. Smith wrote: “We are awash in knowledge and overwhelmed by a flood of information … Yet because our society is organized as an information economy, we are also vexed by mis- and dis-information. “In an age of AI slop…
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Commentary
Trinity Sunday A
“Finally, brothers and sisters,” Paul tells his readers of all times and places in verse 11, “rejoice!” [chairete*]. In other words, the apostle basically finishes his second letter to the Corinthian Christians with a summons to be “cheerful” (The Message) or “joyful” (New Living Translation). So it’s as if he tells Jesus’ friends, “When it’s…
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Commentary
Pentecost A
Christians sometimes rightly think of Pentecost as the birthday of the Church. Since birthdays are often occasions for gift-giving, it seems appropriate for preachers to join Paul in considering and celebrating the gifts [charismaton*] the Holy Spirit gives to the members of the Body of Christ that is the Church. Few texts open themselves to…
1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Commentary
Easter 7A
It can be tempting to reduce discipleship to a kind of spiritual formula. “If we just do this and that good thing,” Jesus’ friends sometimes seem to assume, “then God will do that good thing.” This, however, reverses the biblical equation. More often, because God does this good thing, the Spirit equips us to do…
1 Peter 3:13-22
Commentary
Easter 6A
After hearing the Boy Scouts’ founder Robert Baden-Powell say the Scouts’ motto was “Be prepared,” someone reportedly asked him, “Prepared for what?” The founder allegedly answered, “Why, for any old thing.” In fact, in his manual, Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell wrote that to be prepared means “you are always in a state of readiness in…
About Doug Bratt