About Scott Hoezee

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Scott-Hoezee

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.

Ruth 3:1-5, 4:13-17

Commentary

Proper 27B

The Lectionary has us skip the drama of Ruth 2 and then dips in briefly to Ruth 3 for the connection with Boaz and then zooms ahead to the very end of Ruth 4 for the “happy ending” of the tale and how it all points forward to King David.  As preachers, we are either…

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Ruth 1:1-18

Commentary

Proper 26B

To my mind stopping the reading of Ruth 1 at verse 18 is the narrative equivalent of ending the movie Field of Dreams just before the moment when Ray encounters his long-dead and estranged father on his magical Iowa baseball diamond.  Why stop short of the scene that brings the whole thing together!? So trust…

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Psalm 119:1-8

Commentary

Proper 26B

In the world of secular music, I would guess you would be hard pressed to find many songs with titles like “I Just Love Rules!”  In fact the website Ranker provided their top list of songs with the word “law” in the title but songs of the variety “I’m Lovin’ the Law” don’t seem to…

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Psalm 126

Commentary

Proper 25B

Some of us might remember that another version/translation of Psalm 126:1 mentions specifically the time when “the captives” were brought back to Jerusalem.  That framing of this psalm places this on the far side of the seventy-year exile in Babylon as the people of Israel slowly returned from captivity after Persia conquered Babylon and the…

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Job 42:1-6, 10-17

Commentary

Proper 25B

And they lived happily ever after . . .  Really?  Is it really possible that the Bible’s most troubled (and at times most torturous) book has the proverbial “happy ending”?  Did Disney take over this project at some point?!  At first glance you might think so. Job replies to God that in the wake of…

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Job 38:1-7, 34-41

Commentary

Proper 24B

Why did this happen?  Why didn’t God prevent this?  “Pastor, why did this happen?  “Pastor, where is God?” A child dies, a good person is killed, a freak accident takes the life of someone who was unspeakably precious to us, and we are left to wonder why. And if we’re honest as pastors, we just…

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Psalm 91:9-16

Commentary

Proper 24B

For some reason on this occasion the Lectionary would have us skip the first 8 verses of Psalm 91, which is too bad in that those verses contain one of the most lyric images of God’s providential care of us in the whole Bible.  We are the baby birds who find shelter under the wings…

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Job 23:1-9, 16-17

Commentary

Proper 23B

If you read the John Grisham novel The Firm, you may recall the horrifying moment when a young lawyer and his wife discover that the house so “generously” provided to them by the young man’s law firm is bugged to the hilt.  Every conversation they had had, every lovemaking sigh, every TV show they had…

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Psalm 90:12-17

Commentary

Proper 23B

The middle section of Psalm 90 – omitted by this week’s lection in the RCL – deals with the wrath of God, and that is probably why the Lectionary averts its eyes from that part on every occasion when Psalm 90 pops up in the Lectionary.  Yet it is a key part of what is…

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Job 1:1, 2:1-10

Commentary

Proper 22B

Comments, Observations, and Questions As most everyone knows, the Book of Job is essentially one long disquisition on the age-old question of theodicy: Why does a good God let bad things happen to good people?  The conversations that take place around this question eat up the bulk of this book until finally God comes on…

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