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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.
Proverbs 1:20-33
Commentary
Proper 19B
Comments and Observations: In Plato’s dialogue Phaedrus Socrates tells an ancient Egyptian legend about a king named Thamus and a god named Theuth. Theuth, it seems, was an inventor of great tools and new technologies. One day he showed King Thamus a vast array of his inventions, climaxing with his most recent innovation: writing. The…
Mark 7:24-37
Commentary
Proper 18B
Comments and Observations: Kalos panta pepoieken “He has done everything well.” That’s the bottom line reaction of the crowds that were still thronging around Jesus here in Mark 7, but it seems a bit over the top when you think about it. After all, we’re by no means sure how well-known Jesus’ exorcism of the…
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Commentary
Proper 18B
Comments and Observations: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” “The early bird catches the worm.” “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “God helps those who help themselves.” Sound familiar? They should as these are among the better known modern-day proverbs that have a lot of currency throughout North America. I am…
Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
Commentary
Proper 17B
Comments and Observations After observing the Nazis in action for a while, the German philosopher and writer Heinrich Heine once said that you can count on it: wherever they burn books, they will sooner or later burn people. Maybe a similar or related observation could be made from what we read in Mark 7: wherever…
Song of Solomon 2:8-13
Commentary
Proper 17B
Comments and Observations: Are the people who put together the Common Lectionary winking at us this week? The Lectionary across its three-year cycle contains exactly ONE text from the Song of Songs (or the Song of Solomon) and this is it. But it occurs on the same Year B Sunday when the Gospel lection is…
John 6:56-59
Commentary
Proper 16B
Comments and Observations: But how does it all end? After plunking us down in John 6 for the whole of August in Year B, the Lectionary puts on the brakes before we can get to the end of the story where the REACTION of the crowds to all of this is recorded. So I would…
1 Kings 8: (1-6, 10-11), 22-30, 41-43
Commentary
Proper 16B
The last few verses of this lection strike me as much as anything. So much of the Old Testament is all-Israel all-the-time. There is warfare and defeat of other nations, dark warnings about inter-marriage with Canaanites, the threat of foreign religious practices wheedling their way into the faith of Israel. It’s easy at times to…
John 6:51-58
Commentary
Proper 15B
Comments and Observations: In her short story “The River,” Flannery O’Connor depicts a child who actually drowns when trying to baptize himself in a river. After this startling story was published, someone asked O’Connor about this grotesque depiction of baptism. O’Connor’s critics thought this story was too extreme. But her goal was to remind her…
1 Kings 2:10-12, 3:3-14
Commentary
Proper 15B
Comments and Observations: My wife tells me I think too much about The Godfather, and if you have been paying weekly attention to these sermon commentaries in the Summer of 2015 here, then you know this is indeed the second time in as many weeks that I have mentioned Francis Ford Coppola’s landmark 1974 film. …
John 6:35, 41-51
Commentary
Proper 14B
Comments and Observations: “Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert yet they died.” That’s what Jesus said and it’s a pretty easy verse to cruise past and not much ponder. I mean, of course those people died—in fact, they had died about 1,000 years ago!! And since no one even a millennium earlier had…
About Scott Hoezee