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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 3:12-4:2
Commentary
Last Epiphany C
Sometimes the lessons the Lectionary appoints for a particular Sunday seem about as loosely tied as some teenagers’ tennis shoes. On this Transfiguration Sunday, however, that’s not the case. It doesn’t take much work to recognize the themes that run through the Old Testament, Psalm, Gospel and Epistolary lessons. Each in its own way reflects…
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50
Commentary
Epiphany 7C
It may be a good thing that the Epistolary Lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday comes up only about “once in a blue moon.” Its sections of 1 Corinthians 15 contain, after all, what N.T. Wright, to whose book, Paul for Everyone: I Corinthians, (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2003) I owe great deal…
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Commentary
Epiphany 6C
Few things are sadder than the sight of people who place their hopes in something that can’t deliver that for which they hope. Think, for example, about the sad specter of people lined up to buy lottery tickets, pinning their hopes for wealth on a generally worthless piece of paper. Or think about terminally ill…
1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Commentary
Epiphany 5C
In the Epistolary Lesson the Lectionary appoints for this Sunday Paul describes his theology of 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…
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Commentary
Epiphany 4C
In the more than twenty years that I’ve ministered with and to the church I currently serve, I’ve never preached on 1 Corinthians 13. Now I remember why. Not only is it so lovely that it nearly defies description. It’s also like a figurative lit stick of dynamite. So I take comfort in the assertion…
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a
Commentary
Epiphany 3C
When asked to define “church,” at least some people answer by talking about a place like a building, an event like a worship service, or even a kind of organization that people join. But when Paul defines “church,” he speaks of a living organism into which God’s children are born again, by God’s grace. He…
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Commentary
Epiphany 2C
God’s adopted sons and daughters generally like being related to Christ. Through him, after all, we receive not only the gift of salvation, but also eternal life. On top of that, we don’t have to deal with our brother Christ face to face. So he doesn’t get on our nerves by doing things like hanging…
Acts 8:14-17
Commentary
Epiphany 1C
While it’s at least tangentially related to this Sunday’s gospel lesson, Acts 8:14-17 may seem like a rather odd text for the second Sunday of the new year. It isn’t, after all, just a mysterious text that even the most learned scholars struggle to fully understand. While the Lectionary longs to unite Christians around the…
Ephesians 3:1-12
Commentary
Epiphany C
Most of Jesus’ followers can name their favorite attributes of God. Loving. Gracious. Holy. Almighty. Faithful. The list could go on and on. However, it would be interesting to try to calculate just how many people favor the characteristic of God that is “generosity.” In the light of the Scriptures’ emphasis on it, I sometimes…
Colossians 3:12-17
Commentary
Christmas 1C
Some people who proclaim Colossians 3 this week are old enough to remember a kind of worship battle that largely preceded today’s battles over music. Some of those battles were fought over appropriate clothing for wearing to worship. During the 1960’s and 70’s my dad always wore a suit and tie and my mom wore…
About Doug Bratt