Home » Scott Hoezee » Authors »
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.
2 Samuel 1:1,17-27
Commentary
Proper 8B
You can see why the Revised Common Lectionary wants you to jump from verse 1 to verse 17! There is an act of violence here in the skipped-over portion that tempts a Scripture reader to end the line “This is the Word of the Lord” in something of an interrogative mood: “The Word of the…
Mark 4:35-41
Commentary
Proper 7B
For men ostensibly accustomed to being out on the water, the disciples sure panicked over the weather often enough in the gospels. The only calm one in all those storms-at-sea situations was the land-lubber carpenter from Nazareth. So also here in Mark 4: With just a word the Jesus who had not been sufficiently bothered…
I Samuel 17
Commentary
Proper 7B
Some years ago when last the Lectionary included this famous story, I consulted my son’s “Student Bible” as it was the handiest Bible to grab while I worked at home that day. This particular version of the Bible inserts some textual explanations and elaborations into the biblical text inside little colored boxes. Midway through I…
Mark 4:26-34
Commentary
Proper 6B
Like the message they convey, the two parables in this part of Mark 4 are mighty small. This is no Parable of the Prodigal Son that takes up the better part of a whole chapter. Jesus manages to convey something about the smallness of the kingdom via two stories that are themselves pretty tiny. And…
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Commentary
Proper 6B
Looks can be deceiving. That’s why God apparently doesn’t bother with them in the first place. “The LORD looks at the heart,” God says to Samuel in I Samuel 16:7, now one of the most famous lines of the entire Bible. And on the opposite end of the Bible (and in the paired Gospel lection…
Mark 3:20-35
Commentary
Proper 5B
There is an old saying that sometimes a person “can’t see the forest for the trees.” The idea is that sometimes we become so wrapped up in one thing that we lose sight of the larger picture. Sometimes this can be humorous. So on a TV show you may see a man who is obsessed…
1 Samuel 8:4-11, (12-15), 16-20, (11:14-15)
Commentary
Proper 5B
Growing up, Samuel had watched the old priest Eli behave like Milquetoast vis-à-vis his wretched offspring, Hophni and Phineas. Probably even as a young boy that sad spectacle was enough to make Samuel shake his head in disbelief and disgust. Eli was such a nice guy—how in the world had he raised two boys so…
John 3:1-17
Commentary
Trinity Sunday B
Comments, Observations, and Questions I wonder what Nicodemus was thinking about when he walked home that night. My guess is that it wasn’t the Doctrine of the Trinity! Yet this is the Year B passage assigned for Trinity Sunday 2015. So what did he ponder? No clue. John doesn’t tell us. That’s ironic seeing as,…
Isaiah 6:1-8
Commentary
Trinity Sunday B
Comments, Observations, and Questions It was the year King Uzziah died. Or, it was the year President Kennedy died. Or it was the year 9/11 rattled the world to its core. It was the year when things fell apart, when foundations were shaken, when the markets crumbled, when all that had once been familiar now…
John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
Commentary
Pentecost B
Comments and Observations: Well before Jesus ever preached his first sermon, there was John the Baptist. Long before Jesus ever uttered a parable or healed a blind person, there was John. John had come to prepare the way for his cousin Jesus. And when John preached about this great and coming One, he talked a…
About Scott Hoezee