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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.
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…
Colossians 1:1-14
Commentary
Proper 10C
When my family and I first moved to the Washington D.C. area to serve the church I pastor, a wise colleague told me to read a lot of books. He said members of area churches like it when their pastors quote books. “They’re smart people who like to learn things,” my colleague told me. The…
Galatians 6:(1-6), 7-16
Commentary
Proper 9C
A text whose dominant metaphors including sowing and reaping seems somehow especially appropriate, at least for residents of the northern hemisphere at this time of the year. This month, after all, some “northern” gardeners and farmers are at least beginning to “reap” the cucumbers, chilies, peas, potatoes, onions and other crops they’ve “sown.” Eugene Peterson,…
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Commentary
Proper 8C
This week’s national celebrations in North America give Canadians and Americans opportunities to think about freedom. July 1 is, after all, the Canada Day that at least some people think of as Canada’s birthday. July 4 is the day on which Americans celebrate the anniversary of their declaration of independence from Great Britain. So one…
Galatians 3:23-29
Commentary
Proper 7C
Too many white Americans including Christians have made a mess of race relations by endorsing the horrors of things like Native American displacement, slavery, Japanese-American internment camps and even real estate redlining. In fact, whether it’s in connection with the abomination that is racial profiling or the controversy that surrounds affirmative action, we still manage…
Romans 5:1-5
Commentary
Trinity Sunday C
Trinity Sunday can be one of the most intimidating days on which to proclaim God’s Word. It’s not just that while Christians profess that it’s a biblical truth, the Bible never actually uses the term “Trinity.” It’s not even just that the Trinity is notoriously difficult to even begin to explain. It’s also that if…
Romans 8:14-17
Commentary
Pentecost C
Parents take better care of their attractive children than they do their ugly ones. At least that’s what an article in a 2006 edition of The New York Times reported Canadian researchers concluded after observing more than 400 parents’ treatment of their children during 14 different trips to supermarkets. They deduced that physical attractiveness makes…
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
Commentary
Easter 7C
How can we understand Christ’s promise to come “soon” that he makes not once but twice in just this Sunday’s Epistolary Lesson’s seven verses? After all, few of our definitions of “soon” would include the two thousand years that have elapsed since he made first it. In Revelation 22 John’s dazzling visions of that coming…
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
Commentary
Easter 6C
If we were to ask our hearers for a list of the books of the Bible that most puzzle them, at least some them would likely list both Ezekiel and Revelation. So it may intimidate those who follow the RCL to know that its Easter Season’s next to last Epistolary Lesson is a passage in…
About Doug Bratt