As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord. ~Joshua 24:15b
Most businesses have their own slogan. From small family-owned restaurants—“The best doggone chili in this here county”—to home-improvement warehouses—“You can do it. We can help”—companies like to summarize who they are and what they feature in just a few memorable words.
For years, Burger King pushed back against the fast-food giant McDonald’s and the reality of you and me not having any choice about what goes on our burger. “Have it your way,” they confidently proclaimed.
The companies who create them own these slogans. They are their legal property. When you see the tiny letter ® next to one of these, it means no one else can use it. Even though “I’m lovin’ it!” would fit nicely on your restaurant’s sign, you can’t use it. And even though “Quality Is Job 1” would be a nice slogan for General Motors to use, Ford already owned it.
In the same way, your family needs a slogan, a phrase that sets it apart from other families.
Almost three thousand years ago, it dawned on Joshua that he needed a few words to set his family apart. “What could I say,” he must have mused, “that would distinguish our family from other families? And what words would remind our own clan of who they are? So Joshua came up with history’s first family slogan:
“As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord” (v. 15).
Even if he had paid a New York advertising agency a lot of money, I doubt if they could have come up with a better one. Don’t you agree?
Now here’s a great piece of news. If you’ll look closely at this verse in your Bible, you won’t see the trademark registration notation anywhere. Under consultation with his lawyer, I’m sure, Joshua decided not to copyright his family’s slogan. He decided to leave it in the public domain so that you and I could use it for our own homes if we wanted to.
Slogans are a great idea. Go ahead and write one for your clan. If you have a hard time with this, don’t worry. It’s OK with Joshua if you use the one he came up with. It’s free and it’s yours.