What does "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" mean in Joshua 24:15?

Now, therefore, says Joshua, having recounted the wonderful ways of the Lord to and for His people. "Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord." Departure from God and idolatry are sins that are a very part of man's fallen nature; and occupation of a position, though the most favoured, will not keep departure from God and idolatry out of the heart. It is vain to argue that no hidden household gods were in the houses of Israel, because the nation was in Canaan, and surrounding the tabernacle at Shiloh with its glory-cloud. The call to purge themselves was of God, who knew where the idols were hidden.

Then, as Jacob of old was aroused to vigorous action by God's grace and mercy, so Joshua declared, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Leader as he was, he could but appeal to others to follow his example and to be sincere, true, and thorough for God; for each man, and each house, must at all times deal separately with God. Joshua could but answer for himself and his own house, and this he did. Let us test ourselves, and try our ways by his words.

The people understood well that they were in Canaan solely by the will and work of Jehovah; He had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, He had wrought His great signs in their sight, He had preserved them in all the way they had gone in the wilderness, and He had driven out their enemies in Canaan, and therefore they said, "We will serve Jehovah, for He is our God." But Joshua, with an insight into their hearts, reminded them that it is no light thing to serve a holy and jealous God. Surely old memories and the history of the past added intensity to his warning! Self-confidence makes but a poor figure when arrayed before failures, and sin, and departure from God; but in spite of their history Israel replied "Nay; but we will serve the Lord."

I now pass on to that truly memorable resolution of Joshua, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve … but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15) Observe, "Me and my house." He felt it was not sufficient that he himself should be personally pure from all contact with the defilements and abominations of idolatry; he had also to look well to the moral character and practical condition of his house. Though Joshua were not to worship idols, yet, if his children did so, would he be guiltless? Certainly not. Moreover, the testimony of the truth would have been as effectually marred by the idolatry of Joshua's house as by the idolatry of Joshua himself; and judgement would have been executed accordingly. It is well to see this distinctly. The opening of the first book of Samuel affords most solemn demonstration of the truth of this: "And the Lord said to Samuel, Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that hears it shall tingle. In that day l will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken concerning his house: when I begin, I will also make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knows; BECAUSE HIS SONS MADE THEMSELVES VILE AND HE RESTRAINED THEM NOT." (1 Sam. 3:11-13)

A difference in meaning has been suggested by some, but which is not generally admitted, and must, therefore, be scrutinized with the more care. Greek has many dialects, and New Testament or Hellenistic Greek is not the classic. The Septuagint translation is well known to be for the most part the storehouse of New Testament words. In it oikos seems the word invariably used for a man's own family, the general thought indeed where "house" is used for the inmates. But there are exceptions: "house" seems also used in a wider sense, so as to include servants, and here we have the use of oikia. Thus in "the eldest servant of {Abraham's] house," "house" is oikia. And while at the Passover they took every one a lamb according to the oikos of their fathers, yet (because the servants ate it with their masters) it is said, "a lamb for an" oikia," and "if the oikia be too little for the lamb." When Joshua says, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," it is again oikia: for those who serve him are to serve with him.

Take now oikia. Here we have the eldest servant of Abraham's house; Jacob tells Laban he has been twenty years in his house, where he was treated like a servant; Potiphar's wife speaks to the men of her house about Joseph; and although the lamb of the Passover is taken according to the oikos of their fathers, the measure of eating is a lamb for an oikia, because the servants must be included here: Joshua's "as for me and my house (oikia), we will serve the Lord," naturally includes the servants.

Joshua calls upon Israel to be decisive as to whom they would serve. Did they think it evil (that is, harmful) to serve the Lord? If so, then let them choose now between the idolatry that Abraham had refused or the idolatry of the Amorites (v.15). Joshua is firmly decisive as to himself and his house, as he says, "we will serve the Lord." He had evidently discerned already a tendency of departure on the part of the people.

The people respond that they will not forsake the Lord to serve other gods (v 16), and speak appreciatively of the things of which Joshua reminded them, God's delivering them from the bondage of Egypt, manifesting His presence by great signs, preserving them through the wilderness and driving out their enemies, to enable them to inherit the land. Therefore they affirm they will serve the Lord, "for He is our God" (v.18).

Joshua's words are sometimes quoted for this purpose, as well as those of Moses; and with as little reason or force. After reminding Israel of the condition in which their fathers were, serving other gods, when the Lord took Abraham from the other side of the flood; after rehearsing to them the wonders which God had wrought, and many of which their eyes had beheld; he exhorts them to fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away other gods; and then he adds, "And if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served, that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15). The fact is, he does not call upon them to choose between the Lord and idols. He says, "If it seem evil to you to serve the Lord, choose ye "whether you will serve this class of idols, or that. He, through grace, as we know, was resolved on serving the Lord. But when the people, with good intentions perhaps, but in a spirit of self-sufficiency, declare that they too will serve the Lord, how does Joshua receive their protestations? "And Joshua said to the people, You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you after that he has done you good" (ver. 19). And when the people still vow and protest "Nay; but we will serve the Lord," Joshua says to them, "You are witnesses against yourselves, and you have chosen you the Lord to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses" (ver. 21, 22). Ah, yes; to have our words witness against us is the only result that can flow from our declaring that we choose the Lord and His service. And, as though to show in what a poor condition they were for taking such vows upon them, Joshua immediately exhorts them: "Now, therefore, put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel" (ver. 23). There were, then, strange gods among them! Their hearts, too, needed inclining to serve the Lord! Plain proof that they were, as we know the human heart is, averse to His service.

Thus does this faithful servant of the Lord, evidently by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, seek to set before the people their danger of living up the grand central and foundation truth of the One true and living God, and falling back into the worship of idols. He urges upon them the absolute necessity of whole-hearted decision. "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." There is nothing like plain, out and out decision for God. It is due to Him always. He had proved Himself to be unmistakably for them, in redeeming them from the bondage of Egypt, bringing them through the wilderness, and planting them in the land of Canaan. Hence, therefore, that they should be wholly for Him was nothing more than their reasonable service.

How deeply Joshua felt all this, for himself, is evident from those very memorable words, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Lovely words! Precious decision! National religion might, and alas! did go to ruin; but personal and family religion could, by the grace of God, be maintained, everywhere, and at all times.

Thank God for this! May we never forget it! "Me and my house" is faith's clear and delightful response to God's "Thou and thy house." Let the condition of the ostensible, professed people of God, at any given time, be what it may, it is the privilege of every true-hearted man of God to adopt and act upon this immortal decision, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

He is from the first a thoroughly "consistent" character, one of the very few consistent men who have ever lived, uncompromising in loyalty, truth, and devotion, from the day (and doubtless before it) when he "discomfited" Amalek with the edge of the sword, till the day when, at the close of his long and eventful life, he says "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." In which brief sentence, with his life and personality emphasizing it, we seem to hear each word closing with a decisive snap like a steel spring. That is about all we know concerning his house, and it is entirely honourable to them and to him. Usually a conqueror makes pretty free with the spoils of victory and puts his relatives in good places. "Go to! Let us found our dynasty! Let us make our brother Joseph king of Naples, brother Louis king of Holland, Jerome of Westphalia, and so all round. To the victor the spoils!" But this man Joshua, "Serene, and resolute, and still, and calm, and self-possessed," lives altogether in a higher plane. Neither he nor Gideon would found dynasties to aggrandise their own houses and put their partisans into good posts at the public expense. That lofty disregard for these things, which Fabricius and Curius Dentatus carried with them in their honourable poverty and Cincinnatus to his farm, was manifest here also. Now Caleb, though a good and great man, was not of this nature: forty-five years after the promise was made to him about that bit of property at Hebron, he went up to see after it, and took care he got it too.

Just one word in closing; the Lord said to the disciples in Matthew 10, "Into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and there abide till ye go from there" (v.11). Let us end on that note, that we all want to have worthy homes. I think the best way to do that would be to adopt the saying of Joshua at the end of his life "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh.24:15).

Yet not one word did they utter as to the strange gods which they had been bidden put away from their midst. It is ever easier to say "We will serve the Lord" than it is to purge ourselves from idols; it is easier to resolve to serve the Lord, than to bury our household gods under some oak of Shechem. But God bids us first bury our idols, and then serve Him. Such is the order of His exhortation to us, as He says "Cease to do evil; learn to do well" (Isa. 1:16-17).

Joshua told the people they were witnesses to their own promise as to serving the Lord, and they replied, "We are witnesses." Again he reminded them that first the idols must go, and that afterwards their hearts should be inclined to the Lord, saying, "Now, therefore, put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel."