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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.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Commentary
Proper 8C
God doesn’t usually whisk presidents, pastors, church leaders and other workers up to the heavenly realm upon their retirement. Nor do their successors generally actually pick up their articles of clothing. Yet it’s appropriate to reflect on this Sunday’s appointed text anyway. God, after all, remains deeply interested in human leadership and its transitions. 2…
I Kings 19:1-4, (5-7), 8-15a
Commentary
Proper 7C
Discouragement can be a devastating feeling. A national news magazine once labeled it “the social disease of the 1980s in America.” One biblical commentator suggests “listlessness, despair and resignation are crippling people across the nation in a wave of chronic cynicism.” As evidence, he points to the surging tide of teen suicides and an exploding…
1 Kings 21:1-10, (11-14), 15-21a
Commentary
Proper 6C
In the hymn This Is My Father’s World we profess, “Though the wrong is great and strong, God is the ruler yet.” Yet the “wrong” often seems almost too strong. It often has so many willing allies. All too many powerful people and institutions seem so eager to use their power for “wrong” purposes. Set…
1 Kings 17:8-24
Commentary
Proper 5C
We live a world that death and violence seem to have in their iron-like stranglehold. All too often they appear to have both the dominant and final word in our world. In the midst of this culture of violence and death, however, God is in the business of constantly giving life. Death stubbornly looms over…
1 Kings 18:20-21 (22-29), 30-39
Commentary
Proper 4C
It seems that some 21st century North Americans approach religion the way hungry people graze at a buffet. A little bit of this. A smidgeon of that. A little bit of Christianity. A dollop of Buddhism. A sprinkling of Hinduism. Since God is the God of all truth, people can learn some things from a…
Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
Commentary
Trinity Sunday C
On even the most “ordinary” Sunday it can be difficult to preach and teach from the book of Proverbs. It may seem well nigh impossible to do so on Trinity Sunday. It isn’t just that Proverbs that doesn’t mention the Trinity. After all, the term is found nowhere in the whole Bible. It’s also difficult…
Acts 2:1-21
Commentary
Pentecost C
What’s the best way to celebrate a birthday? How should one celebrate the birthday of important people or institutions? In fact, how should we celebrate what some have called the “birthday of the Church” that is Pentecost? When we celebrate our sons’ birthdays, we sometimes recall stories of their birth. Of how one was born…
Acts 16:16-34
Commentary
Easter 7C
TANSTAAFL is an acronym for the old adage, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” reportedly coined by Robert Heinlein. Quite simply, it means even if something appears to be free, there’s always some kind of catch. So your friendly neighborhood lobbyist (or pastor) may buy you lunch or dinner. However, she’s probably…
Acts 16:9-15
Commentary
Easter 6C
Occasionally the Lectionary’s choice of where to begin and end a text boggles preachers’ and teachers’ minds. This Sunday’s text is a good case in point. It’s not just that it begins in the middle of a paragraph in most English translations. It’s also that this text begins in the middle of what we often…
Acts 11:1-18
Commentary
Easter 5C
It’s hard for many of us to imagine Christians getting upset with each other over whom they eat lunch with. So we sometimes assume Peter’s Jewish Christian colleagues were angry with him because he shared the gospel with gentiles. You and I may assume this upset them because they thought of the gospel as belonging…
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