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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.
2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Commentary
Proper 7B
2 Corinthians 6 virtually drips with pathos. It reveals the heart of an apostle who has been both reconciled to God and invites others to be reconciled to God, but has been stonewalled by people to whom he longs to be reconciled. While God has graciously reconciled Paul to himself, Paul’s friends in Corinth have…
2 Corinthians 5:6-10, (11-13), 14-17
Commentary
Proper 6B
The end of Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson has taken on perhaps extra poignancy over the past fifteen months or so. That’s partly because, at least in the United States, the global pandemic, political partisanship and struggles for racial justice have added new chapters to the story of what its verse 16 calls “a worldly point of…
2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
Commentary
Proper 5B
The COVID-19 global pandemic has taken away more things than we can count. It has robbed countless people of their lives and livelihoods, as well as mental and physical health. But one loss that’s easy to overlook is our loss of funerals and memorial services that are attended by more than about 10-15 people. That…
Romans 8:22-27
Commentary
Pentecost B
There’s a whole lot of groaning going on not just in this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson, but also in God’s world. Sometimes, in fact, that groaning’s so loud that you don’t even have to listen very carefully to hear it. The Greek word that English Bible’s generally translate as “groan” is systenezai. It carries with…
1 John 5:9-13
Commentary
Easter 7B
1 John’s “love letter” approaches its “landing strip” with this Sunday’s RCL Epistolary Lesson. Yet it may initially seem as if this “flight” is veering off course. After all, in a letter that John packs with calls to love God and our neighbor, this text emphasizes testimony. Of course, 1 John 5:9-13 is related to…
1 John 5:1-6
Commentary
Easter 6B
My colleague Judith Jones suggests that the community to which John writes his first letter was facing a crisis. Some former members of the community were denying Jesus was actually the Messiah, God’s flesh and blood, fully human, fully divine Son. So John’s letters’ readers seemed to struggle with whom they should believe, how they…
1 John 4:7-21
Commentary
Easter 5B
Contrary to the Beatles’ sung claims, all we “need” isn’t “love.” But the full-orbed, whole person love to which this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson summons Jesus’ followers will go a very long way to meeting all sorts of “needs.” Jesus’ friends might call John’s first letter his “love letter.” That emphasis is, in fact, a theme…
1 John 1:1-2:2
Commentary
Easter 2B
This Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s proclaimers might lead into their presentation of it with a story of how they needed an intercessor. A number of years ago I traveled to sit with members of our church during their family member’s major surgery. Using an inaccurate map, I became lost in a maze of one-way streets. After…
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Commentary
Easter Day B
In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul tries to clear up some theological misunderstandings about the resurrection. Yet he insists that the Corinthians’ confusion about it isn’t just one among many problems that he’s already addressed. Lack of clarity about the resurrection isn’t like confusion about, for example, sexuality, food offered to idols and lawsuits that plague…
Philippians 2:5-11
Commentary
Lent 6B
The retired American professional basketball star Charles Barkley once famously said in a television commercial, “I’m not a role model … Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” His statement displayed the kind of wisdom that other public figures sometimes lack. The Epistolary Lesson the RCL appoints for this…
About Doug Bratt