Home » Doug Bratt » Authors »
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 1:1-7
Commentary
Advent 4A
God saves God’s adopted children by grace alone that we can only receive with our faith in Jesus Christ. However, God always calls those whom God loves to express that faith with our obedience. Someone once said, “Make a good beginning and you’re half the way to winning.” Certainly, then, Paul seems halfway to winning…
James 5:7-10
Commentary
Advent 3A
This is a season of the year that we don’t generally link to patience. Children are chomping at the bit to open their presents. Some of us are impatient for holiday visits from family members and friends who live at a distance from us. A few of us may even feel impatient to be done…
Romans 15:4-13
Commentary
Advent 2A
I didn’t have much money when I was in college. So I tried to drive as far on a tank of gas as I could. As a result, I ran out of gas in the middle of the night twice … in the space of less than a month. Each time I called my relatively…
Romans 13:11-14
Commentary
Advent 1A
While few people have labeled procrastination a “deadly sin,” our text at least suggests that one form of it may be the deadliest sin of all. That’s a sobering assertion for someone like me who is naturally one of the worst procrastinators that I know. At least some of us are tempted to procrastinate in…
Hebrews 12:18-29
Commentary
Proper 16C
My colleague Scott Hoezee, to whom (August, 2016 commentary) with Tom Long (Hebrews, John Knox Press, 1997) I owe a great deal for this commentary’s ideas, compares reading this morning’s text to watching a good tennis match’s extended rally. After all, spectators must constantly turn their heads to watch a good rally. They must look…
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Commentary
Proper 15C
It sometimes seems like human nature to long for heroes. Today, however, it’s difficult to find heroes to whom we can steadily look up. The bright lights of things like 24-hour cable networks, YouTube and social media expose even the most famous people’s moral spots and wrinkles. So it may seem nice to have a…
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Commentary
Proper 14C
The word “faith” conjures up a variety of images. Twenty-first century Western culture often seems to think of faith as belief that has no objective basis. One of the Merriam Webster Dictionary’s definitions of faith is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” From that perspective, one might have faith that, for…
Colossians 3:1-11
Commentary
Proper 13C
On that glorious first Easter morning an angel told the two Mary’s that God had raised Christ from the dead. Two thousand years later God’s adopted sons and daughters hear an aging apostle tells us that God also somehow raised us with Christ. But if it’s sometimes a little hard to believe that God raised…
Colossians 2:6-15, (16-19)
Commentary
Proper 12C
Few phrases seem harder to learn and say than, “Thank you.” After all, few responses mature more slowly than thanksgiving. In fact, gratitude hasn’t yet fully ripened in me, even after nearly more than sixty-one years’ worth of reasons for feeling it. I, after all, naturally assume that I deserve nearly everything I have. So…
Colossians 1:15-28
Commentary
Proper 11C
If the first four verses of this Sunday’s RCL’s Epistolary Lesson don’t make its preachers and teachers’ heads spin at least a bit, we’re probably not paying enough attention to them. In verse 15, after all, Paul insists, probably no more than 20 years after Jesus ascended into the heavenly realm, he’s “the image of…
About Doug Bratt