About Doug Bratt

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Rev. Douglas Bratt is a Minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. After being ordained in 1987, he served Christian Reformed churches in northeastern Iowa and western Michigan. He is in his 25th year of serving the Silver Spring (MD) Christian Reformed Church. 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.

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25

Commentary

Proper 27A

What’s the Church’s most important task?  Some people might answer, “Sharing the gospel’s good news with the whole world,” or “Teaching children to follow Jesus.”  Others answer, “Being God’s hands of justice and mercy in the world” or “Being a welcoming place.” Each of those is certainly among the church’s important tasks.  But were you…

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Joshua 3:7-17

Commentary

Proper 26A

Joshua 3 always feels, at best, somewhat anti-climactic.  After all, you might argue the Bible’s first five chapters have all been pointing toward the Jordan crossing it describes.  Patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have given their lives to God’s promise to make this happen.  The people of Israel have been heading (but sometimes meandering)…

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Deuteronomy 34:1-12

Commentary

Proper 25A

Few of us can read Deuteronomy 34 without getting at least a lump in our throat and tear in our eye.  After all, Moses has dragged the Israelites, often kicking and screaming, out of Egypt, through the wilderness and to the doorstep of Canaan.  Yet this Sunday’s Old Testament text reports that he never gets…

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Exodus 33:12-23

Commentary

Proper 24A

Have you ever been so eager for something that you’d put your life on the line for it?  You may not think so.  Yet Moses did.  Sometimes he’s close to God, sure of God, “filled to the brim,” as Neal Plantinga writes, with God. At other times, however, Moses feels uncertain, misled and spiritually “dried…

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Exodus 32:1-14

Commentary

Proper 23A

Almost all of us have experienced our text’s Aaron’s feelings at one time or another.  He’s caught, after all, quite literally between a rock and a hard place.  Aaron is trapped between a glorious past and an uncertain future. Israel’s memories of her escape from Egyptian slavery remain as clear as a dry, cool night…

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Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20

Commentary

Proper 22A

Comments and Observations When preaching on Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments, there are multiple directions to go in a sermon.    It’s a bit challenging to preach on all of the commandments at once, though a way can be found to do that, of course.   But for this sermon commentary, I have chosen to ponder…

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Exodus 17:1-7

Commentary

Proper 21A

As my colleague Scott Hoezee noted in an earlier Sermon Commentary on this text, a piece to which I’m deeply indebted for several of this piece’s ideas, at first glance this may seem like just another story of Israelite bellyaching to Moses about dragging them out of Egypt.  It seems to reveal nothing new about…

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Exodus 16:2-15

Commentary

Proper 20A

Human memory can be remarkably pliable.  It isn’t just illness or advancing age that can bend and twist it.  Trauma too can do remarkable things to memory. Exodus 15 describes how God responds to God’s Israelite children’s grumbling about their lack of something to drink.  At Marah and Elim God gives them refreshing water to…

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Exodus 14:19-31

Commentary

Proper 19A

Its narrator so packs Exodus 14 with pyrotechnics that it almost begs for an update to Cecil B. DeMille’s classic, The Ten Commandments.  Yet it’s easy to focus so much on all of its light, sound and fury that even its preachers and teachers may lose sight of its ultimate author. The text the Lectionary…

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Exodus 3:1-15

Commentary

Proper 17A

“Does Jesus Care?” is a hymn grieving family members sometimes ask soloists to sing at funerals.  They ask, “Does Jesus care when my heart is pained/ too deeply for mirth or song,/ as the burdens press, and the cares distress,/ and the way grows weary and long?” While the lyrics may seem a bit outdated…

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