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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.
Ephesians 1:3-14
Commentary
2nd Sunday after Christmast C
Few Scripture passages are theologically weightier than this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson. In fact, in an earlier commentary on it, Scott Hoezee remembers once asking the congregation he served about how it would feel if he were from then to on base every sermon on Ephesians 1:3-14. He notes that while most would call it a…
Colossians 3:12-17
Commentary
1st Sunday after Christmas C
Commentators use a variety of terms to describe this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s set of ethical commands. Leonard Klein calls it a “haustafel, a table of duties for those in various estates.” Elsewhere I have called it “the Christian’s wardrobe.” Yet no matter how its proclaimers label Colossians 3’s set of invitations to Christ-likeness, there can…
Hebrews 10:5-10
Commentary
Advent 4C
On this last Sunday before Christmas, the RCL (finally) turns its Epistolary Lessons’ eyes from that to which few North American eyes naturally turn toward that to which most Christians’ eyes have been turned for almost a month already. Hebrews 10, after all, turns our eyes away from Christ’s second coming and toward his first….
Philippians 4:4-7
Commentary
Advent 3C
The season of Advent is, for many of Jesus’ friends, as well as the culture in which many citizens of the global west live, a perhaps especially busy one. Many of us are busily preparing for various holiday celebrations, even as a global pandemic and political strife continue to rage among and around us. So…
Philippians 1:3-11
Commentary
Advent 2C
Jesus’ friends would do well to take at least some of our Advent cues from children. This is, after all, a season of waiting. However, children especially sometimes struggle to wait patiently during Advent. In fact, some of them have an almost laser-focus on that which they await. Adults may share some of children’s impatience…
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
Commentary
Advent 1C
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson speaks about waiting during an Advent season that’s largely devoted to waiting. However, it addresses the kind of waiting that runs largely counter to our culture (and at least some of the Church’s) waiting. 1 Thessalonians 3 doesn’t describe, after all, how to wait for our celebration of Christ’s first coming….
Revelation 1:4b-8
Commentary
Proper 29B
There may be little new to say about a passage to which the Lectionary returns twice every three years and about which my colleagues have already so ably commented. Their fine commentaries in the CEP’s library of commentaries provide more familiar approaches to a proclamation of Revelation 1:4b-8. But proclaimers who are looking for another…
Hebrews 10:11-14, (15-18), 19-25
Commentary
Proper 28B
The COVID-19 pandemic and efforts to mitigate it have changed the way at least some Christians have met or are currently “meeting together” (25). Restrictions have forced at least some of us to meet together remotely rather than in the same building. Restrictions have also forced some Christians to worship somewhat differently even when they…
Hebrews 9:24-28
Commentary
Proper 27B
Hebrews’ proclaimers as well as our hearers may by now feel a little burned out by Hebrews. That’s the way my colleague Len Vander Zee begins his thoughtful and insightful 2018 commentary on this week’s Epistolary Lesson. Hebrews’ preachers and teachers may feel a bit like investigators at a crime scene that’s so covered with…
Hebrews 9:11-14
Commentary
Proper 26B
As I noted in a 2018 commentary on this week’s Epistolary Lesson, this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson is “bloody.” In fact, it’s so bloody that citizens of the already figuratively blood-soaked 21st century may be uncomfortable with it. But perhaps humanity needed such a radical solution because its problem was so deeply-ingrained. Few pieces of baggage…
About Doug Bratt