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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.
Philemon 1:1-21
Commentary
Proper 18C
A colleague recently told me that he sometimes feels like members of his church think of him as a UPS package that’s all wrapped up and labelled. Ironically, however, those members don’t agree on what his label says. My colleague says they variously think of him as too liberal or conservative, lenient or intolerant, modern…
Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16
Commentary
Proper 17C
“Just tell me what I have to do, Pastor!” I suspect that nearly all of us have heard variations on this theme. This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson seems to offer help in answering such questions. That may, in fact, be a reason why proclaimers’ attention is often most quickly drawn to its ethical pronouncements. Hebrews 13…
Hebrews 12:18-29
Commentary
Proper 16C
What might Christian worship look like if each service began with Hebrews’, “Let us … worship God acceptably with reverence and awe”? What affect on worship might a sticky note on preachers, worship planners and leaders’ computers that read, “Let us … worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” have? Those who proclaim and hear…
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Commentary
Proper 15C
Hebrews’ author devotes most of chapter 11 to an exploration of what it means to live and die by faith. But he doesn’t call his readers to “fix their eyes” (12:2) on any of the people we sometimes “heroes and heroines of the faith.” Hebrews’ author only invites his readers to “keep our eyes” on…
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Commentary
Proper 14C
We sometimes assume that we can recognize an alien when we see him (he’s green and has antennae) or at least see her citizenship papers (they say citizen of Canada, or Mexico, the United States, or some other country of origin). Yet when Hebrews’ author speaks of people like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and others…
Colossians 3:1-11
Commentary
Proper 13C
Few issues roil the 21st century North American church more than those that revolve around human sexuality. North American Christians spend much time arguing about extra-marital sex, same sex attraction and marriage, as well as gender dysphoria. Churches and denominations are dividing, whether formally or informally, around the appropriateness or inappropriateness of various sexual behaviors….
Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Commentary
Proper 12C
The sacrament of baptism isn’t just a source of almost endless controversy among Jesus Christ’s friends. It’s also sometimes vulnerable to distraction from its importance. When, for example, Reformed Christians think of infant baptism, we sometimes focus on cute babies and their outfits, as well as beaming parents and grandparents. When Christians who practice “believers’…
Colossians 1:15-28
Commentary
Proper 11C
“Sedition” and “seditious” are concepts to which at least some Americans have paid a lot of attention over the past eighteen months. Some are asking themselves and each other whether a mob’s January 6, 2021’s storming of the United States Capital building was an act of sedition. At least some Americans who wonder that also…
Colossians 1:1-14
Commentary
Proper 10C
Elements of this week’s Epistolary Lesson are faintly reminiscent of Huck Finn’s experience with prayer. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck recounts how his foster mother, Miss Watson, tried to teach him to pray. “Miss Watson … took me in the closet and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray…
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
Commentary
Proper 9C
“It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up” has spilled from the lips of at least some of us. Sometimes, of course, we try to cloak our braggadocio in the mantle of false humility. But few of us easily resist the temptation to brag about ourselves or people who are dear to us. Thugs…
About Doug Bratt