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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.
John 1:29-42
Commentary
Epiphany 2A
“The world was made through him,” the apostle John wrote earlier in this chapter, “but when he was in the world, it didn’t recognize him.” Indeed, it didn’t. Jesus existed as just another face in the crowd. Even his own cousin, John the Baptist, almost missed recognizing him. And yet hidden inside that one man…
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
Commentary
Epiphany 2A
If what we call First Corinthians were a contemporary letter, then a good bit of this reading would be like focusing not on the shank or the primary content of the letter. Instead, it would be like focusing on the part of the letter at the very end that begins with “Well, that’s about all…
Matthew 3:13-17
Commentary
Epiphany 1A
Poor John. It didn’t look right. What was going on here? This was not the public appearance of Jesus that John had set everyone up to see (cf. Matthew 3:1-12 for goodness sake!!!). As Matthew 3 ends, you can almost picture John the Baptist carrying on with the rest of that day’s baptisms with a…
Acts 10:34-43
Commentary
Epiphany 1A
It beats me why the Lectionary—on a Sunday celebrating the baptism of Jesus—cuts this reading off at verse 43 just BEFORE there is a wonderful scene of baptism in Acts 10. In fact, I was so sure it was a typo on the one Lectionary site I consult each week that I looked up the…
Matthew 2:13-23
Commentary
1st Sunday after Christmas A
There’s nothing like kicking off a new year with a story about slaughtered babies . . . But there it is. New Year’s Day 2017 falls on a Sunday, and if bleary-eyed people who stayed up for champagne and the Times Square ball-drop manage to get to church the following morning—it’s really the same morning—and…
Hebrews 2:10-18
Commentary
1st Sunday after Christmas A
God’s power cannot cut it. That’s both the bottom line and the upshot of this part of Hebrews 2. Isn’t that weird, though? Isn’t that counter-intuitive? How often haven’t most of us said or thought something along the lines of “If only I were in charge . . . If only I were in control…
Luke 2:1-20
Commentary
Christmas Day A
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt once published some very intriguing data on what he calls “elevation,” which is the opposite of disgust. We all know that there are any number of things that disgust us or cause us to feel revulsion. When we witness hypocrisy, cruelty, betrayal, and the like, we recoil–there are even certain physical sensations…
Titus 2:11-14
Commentary
Christmas Day A
Yes, this text is aptly Christmas-like enough, being all about the “appearing” or Epiphany of God’s Son into our world. It’s all about God’s “indescribable gift” to the world and so has plenty of Advent and Christmas Day resonances. Yet in a real way this is the Christmas story for the day after Christmas, the…
Matthew 1:18-25
Commentary
Advent 4A
Suppose that one day you were reading a story in which an elderly woman is talking to her pregnant granddaughter. “Now listen, my dear,” the old woman says, “I would ask that you name this child after your grandfather and so give him the name Nelson.” Suppose the young woman agrees. “OK, Grandma, his name…
Romans 1:1-7
Commentary
Advent 4A
“To God’s beloved ones in Rome.” Such a simple, such a commonplace way to open a letter. We read such a salutation in all of the New Testament’s many epistles. And it’s easy to breeze right past it, hurry on by to get to the meat of the letter, the real important stuff about the…
About Scott Hoezee