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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 Samuel 1:1,17-27
Commentary
Proper 8B
This may, at first glance, seem like a rather odd passage to proclaim in the twenty-first century. The entirety of 2 Samuel 1, after all, mentions the Lord only twice. What’s more, David’s eulogy never mentions God. So if this were the only or last message I was ever going to proclaim, I wouldn’t choose…
1 Samuel 17: (1a, 4-11, 19-23) 32-49
Commentary
Proper 7B
North American television might eat up 1 Samuel 17’s story. It, after all, bristles with the kind of military might and imagery that networks like the CBC and Fox News make their living on. They love to do close-ups on war’s most powerful human figures that are soldiers of one shape or another. Even 1…
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Commentary
Proper 6B
There’s almost always more going on than meets the eye. Whether it’s at a cosmic or molecular level, we just can’t always see what’s really going on. So, for example, the 1973 Watergate break-in initially looked like little more than a clumsy effort at burglary. It turned, however, out to be part of President Nixon…
1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)
Commentary
Proper 5B
How many times hasn’t each of us thought if not said something like, “But everybody else is doing it!”? How often have you heard children and young adults say something like, “Everyone else’s parents are letting them go!”? After all, we like to think that if “everyone else” is doing something, it can’t be wrong….
1 Samuel 3:1-10, (11-20)
Commentary
Proper 4B
At first glance, “the word of the Lord” hardly seems as “rare” in many parts of Christ’s Church as it was in Samuel and Eli’s family’s day (1). After all, many who are reading this make at least part of our living proclaiming that word of the Lord. American cable television providers still broadcast numerous…
Isaiah 6:1-8
Commentary
Trinity Sunday B
Isaiah 6 is a bit reminiscent of a “good news, bad news” joke about a conversation between a lawyer and her client. She told him, “I have some good news and some bad news. Which do you want to hear first?” Her client replied, “Give me the bad news first.” “The bad news is that…
Acts 2:2-21
Commentary
Pentecost B
Throughout nearly all of recorded human history, people’s inability to communicate with each other has divided us. So for people to somehow come (and stay) together, something dramatic must happen. In fact, since human efforts to fully unify people have proved largely futile or temporary, we might add that something dramatic must happen to us….
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Commentary
Easter 7B
Where besides Acts 1 does Matthias’ name appear in the Scriptures? The answer is, of course, “Nowhere.” After all, as quickly as Matthias appears in Acts 1, he disappears again. Yet while that might render him as little more than a biblical footnote, it’s one of Acts 1’s details that may be an avenue to…
Acts 10:44-48
Commentary
Easter 6B
May Christians ever give up hope for the salvation of any living person? Can we, in other words, simply abandon anyone to Satan’s captivity? What about those who have already received God’s grace with their faith? May God’s adopted sons and daughters ever deliberately or even unconsciously abandon these fellow Christians? Certainly some early Christians…
Acts 8:26-40
Commentary
Easter 5B
If the Holy Spirit is a bit like a stone dropped into the middle of a pond, then Acts 8:26-40’s story is like one of the concentric rings that ripples out from it and across God’s world. But it’s only one of the first of a series of rings that continues to spread to this…
About Doug Bratt