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.
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…
1 Peter 2:2-10
Commentary
Easter 5A
God uses God’s image-bearers’ race, gender, history and other things to shape who we are. Yet while those factors help form us, Jesus’ friends don’t find our central identity in them. We are first and foremost what Peter refers to in verse 10 as “the people of God [laos Theou*].” By professing that, the apostle…
1 Peter 2:19-25
Commentary
Easter 4A
The faithful proclamation of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson poses some challenges. In terms of the church year, its focus on Jesus’ suffering seems to orient it more to a Lenten or Holy Week than Easter theme. Preachers may need the Spirit to help us be a bit creative to make 1 Peter 2:19-25 “fit” into…
1 Peter 1:17-23
Commentary
Easter 3A
Some biblical phrases are so theologically rich that gospel proclaimers might be tempted to preach entire sermons on them alone. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson offers one example of that. In 1 Peter 1:17b the apostle summons his scattered readers to “Live out [anastraphete*] your time [chronon] as foreigners [paroikias] here in reverent fear [phobo].” Preachers…
1 Peter 1:3-9
Commentary
Easter 2A
Jesus’ resurrection, as we noted last week, changes everything. It even changes the way people God has raised to life with him see things. The Spirit equips God’s adopted children to, among other things, love and believe in the Jesus whom we can’t yet see with our eyes. By God’s amazing grace, we trust in…
Colossians 3:1-4
Commentary
Easter Day A
On the American National Library of Medicine website the cognitive therapist Dr. Dean Schuyler reflects on what we might think of as what people often “set” our “hearts on” (cf. Colossians 3:2). “What,” he asks there, “do we think about? “We anticipate sometimes, thinking about events to come. We think about our children and sometimes…
Philippians 2:5-11
Commentary
Palm Sunday A
In some ways Philippians 2:5-11 resembles taxes and my beloved Detroit Tigers’ mediocrity: each predictably comes around once a year – at least to preachers who follow the Revised Common Lectionary. As a result, this is now at least the ninth time I’ve had the privilege of writing a commentary on this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson….
Romans 8:6-11
Commentary
Lent 5A
Parts of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson are somewhat mysterious. Preachers who feel the Spirit prompting us to proclaim its gospel aren’t helped by the fact that by beginning with verse 6 rather than verse 5, this Lesson begins in what seems like the middle of not just a paragraph, but also a thought. Preachers can…
Ephesians 5:8-14
Commentary
Lent 4A
“Have nothing to do with [me synkoinoneite*] the fruitless [akarpois] deeds of darkness [skotous],” Paul admonishes Ephesus’ Christians in verses 11-12 of this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. “But rather expose [elenchete] them. It is shameful [aischron] even to mention [legein] what the disobedient do in secret [kryphe].” While that warning is nearly two thousand years old,…
About Doug Bratt