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Rev. Scott E. Hoezee (Hoe-zay) is an ordained pastor in the Christian Reformed Church in North America and has served two congregations. He was the pastor of Second Christian Reformed Church in Fremont, Michigan, from 1990-1993. From 1993-2005 he was the Minister of Preaching and Administration at Calvin CRC in Grand Rapids, Michigan. In the spring of 2005 Scott accepted the Seminary’s offer to become the first Director of the Center for Excellence in Preaching. He has also been a member of the Pastor-Theologian Program sponsored by the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, New Jersey, where he was pastor-in-residence in the fall of 2000. From 2001-2011 Scott served on the editorial board of Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought and was co-editor of that journal from 2005-2011. He blogs regularly for The Reformed Journal and along with Darrell Delaney is the co-host of the Groundwork radio and podcast program.
Rev. Hoezee is married to Rosemary Apol and they have two children. He enjoys birdwatching, snorkeling, and exploring the beauties and wonders of God’s great creation.
Rev. Hoezee is the author of several books including The Riddle of Grace (1996), Flourishing in the Land (1996), Remember Creation (1998), Speaking as One: A Look at the Ecumenical Creeds (1997), Speaking of Comfort: A Look at the Heidelberg Catechism (1998), and Proclaim the Wonder: Preaching Science on Sunday (2003), Grace Through Every Generation (2007), Actuality: Real Life Stories for Sermons That Matter (2014), and Why We Listen To Sermons (2018).
Scott Hoezee has been writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website since its inception in July 2005.
Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Commentary
Proper 26C
As most every Bible commentary would tell you, the way Paul uses Habakkuk 2:4b (“the righteous will live by faith”) in Romans and Galatians may be a bit different from how the text “sounds” and seems to function in the original context of Habakkuk 2. Habakkuk has spent most of his prophecy up to this…
Joel 2:23-32
Commentary
Proper 25C
This is the “happy” section of Joel but it probably needs to be seen in context. More on that at the end of this sermon commentary. For now we can see a connection to last week’s Old Testament Common Lectionary text from Jeremiah 31, which pointed to the promise of God’s giving his people a…
Psalm 84:1-7
Commentary
Proper 25C
In the Calvin Seminary Chapel above and behind the pulpit area is a large clear-glass window with a cross in the center. A few years ago during a May Term preaching class in the chapel, we all noticed that a large Horned Owl had made a nest in the uppermost window pane near the top…
Psalm 121
Commentary
Proper 24C
When I was a little kid, I remember Psalm 121 being read in church or sometimes at our dinner table. Back then various versions of the Bible translated that first line, “I lift up mine eyes to the hills, whence cometh my help.” The sentence is in the indicative mood. Read this way, it is…
Jeremiah 31:27-34
Commentary
Proper 24C
I am not sure why the Revised Common Lectionary’s series of passages from Jeremiah skips around the way it does (one week Jeremiah 32 but then next time around it’s back to chapter 29 and now we leap to chapter 31) but I think I can understand why the Lectionary saved this passage from the…
Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7
Commentary
Proper 23C
It’s not often that a true prophet of God ends up having prophetic egg on his face, but just that had recently happened to Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 28 a prophetic wannabe named Hananiah delivered what he declared was a true revelation from God. Hananiah made wonderfully sunny promises about Israel’s being released from captivity very,…
Psalm 111
Commentary
Proper 23C
In a recent sermon commentary on another psalm, I observed that although the poetry of the Psalms and the wisdom literature of Proverbs or Ecclesiastes are distinct in terms of biblical literary genre, there is a lot of crossover between the Books of Psalms and Proverbs. Psalm 111 is another example of this with its…
Christmas: Home
Written Sermon
“Are you going home for Christmas?” What question has been more commonplace in recent weeks? Some while ago in December I was at the grocery store and as I walked through the store, I heard some version of that very question over and over. A cashier glanced over to a bagger, “So, you going home…
Lamentations 1:1-6
Commentary
Proper 22C
Cheery this lection is not. The New Testament sermon starter based on Luke 17 for this week is a bit of a challenging passage and so some preachers might be tempted to swap out this week’s Old Testament reading for the Gospel one but if so, then turning to this downbeat passage might make one…
Psalm 37:1-9
Commentary
Proper 22C
The Book of Psalms—and sometimes individual poems within it—can be pretty good at the proverbial “talking out of both sides of one’s mouth at the same time.” Taken individually, some psalms paint a very pretty picture of how the righteous always prosper and how the wicked always fail miserably. Then again, other psalms admit that…
About Scott Hoezee