One of the new laws in the state of Texas mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. You walk into a classroom and you see a poster that looks like this:

Several interpretive questions come to mind:

1. Whose speech act is this? Though the words are from the Bible, they are an edited version of what’s found in Exodus 20 with some of the words cut out. Does that make this a speech act of the Texas government (though an appropriation of God’s words)?
2. The translation provided is from the King James Version (the Authorized Version). This presentation of the text of the commandments (which is taken directly from the legislation) keeps the capitalization of “LORD” at the beginning but drops it elsewhere. Should we take this to mean that they are adhering to the convention of translating “יְהוָה” as “LORD” in the first place, but not in the others? When we see LORD in the Old Testament it is the conventional way of signifying the personal name of the God of Israel, יְהוָה (or YHWH/Yahweh). Should we make something of their use of this convention – should we assume they are aware of and intentionally following this convention? If so, should we then take them to be specifying that this “LORD God” who is represented as giving these commandments is not just a generic god, a mere supreme being, but the God of Israel, the particular God honored and worshipped by Jews and Christians?
3. Or maybe we should assume the legislature doesn’t understand the convention regarding “LORD,” explaining why they changed it to “Lord” when it appears later in the text.
4. The text given in the Texas legislation drops the second half of verse 2: “who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” The advantage of this mutilation of the biblical text is that it allows readers to fudge on both the identity of the god who is purported to give these commands and the “you” to whom they are addressed. In Exodus 20 the God who is speaking is “the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” This God is not just a generic supreme being or giver of a universal moral scheme. This is a God who acted in history with a particular people. Having already delivered them from slavery in Egypt, this God is now making covenant with them. When we read the whole of verse two – and indeed read the commandments in their biblical context – we see that these commandments are addressed to those people, to Israel. They are not addressed to the Egyptians, the Edomites, the Greeks, the Chinese – you get the idea. By editing this line out of the text (and by taking the Ten Commandments to be separable from the rest of the biblical context), Texas seems to be reframing the Commandments as admonitions pertaining to a general morality applicable to everyone everywhere – even non Jews and non Christians in Texas.
5. Since the legislature has taken upon itself to edit the text in such significant ways, perhaps we see here an appropriation of what in the original context God’s words so that now these words are now the legislature’s words. This is certainly not how they are framed – they still claim an association with God. In the original context of Exodus 20, verse 1, another verse expunged by the legislature, says, “And God spoke all these words.” By cutting off verse 1 should we think that we should read instead, “And the Texas Legislature said all these words?”
6. To whom are the words on this Ten Commandments poster addressed? Since the legislature has mutilated verse 2, it’s no longer natural to read them as addressed to God’s covenant people, Israel (although I suppose some modern day adherents of British Israelism might want to claim that America is now God’s covenant people). Will students in classrooms take these words to be addressed to them? If they do, what reason might they take themselves to pay heed? Will the teacher, the principal, or the Commissioner of Education come down on them for disobedience? Israel took themselves to have reason to obey God’s commands and keep his covenant because they knew God and had experienced his saving work. God communicated love and built trust before giving the commands. Israel knew this. Has the legislature communicated love and built trust with students (and teachers?) before giving these commands? If so, do students take themselves to be aware of these actions?
7. Should non Jews & non Christians take these commands as coercive action against them? Must atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, etc., give up their own belief systems, practices, and allegiances and acquiesce to these commands? Or are the commands not intended to function as commands but as pointers to something like a “history of morality?” Is the legislature merely saying, “Many of the people who formed our country valued these commands. The idea of valuing commands like this is still important to us. You don’t have to believe, obey, or practice these commands, but you should know they are there.”
8. If the government of the State of Texas values these commands enough to require their posting in all public schools, should we assume that they themselves seek to adhere to them? What does it mean to “value” commandments while not adhering to them? If the state wants students to value them and adhere to them, to what degree should those who enacted this law (who promulgated this edition of the Ten Commandments) be held accountable to them?
9. As Christians who not only value the Bible but seek to live by it, should we cheer that an edited version of part of it is required to be posted in all classrooms? Should we read the action as a religious performance, perhaps of the type addressed by Jesus in Matthew 23? If we believe our society (and world!) would be improved by universal adherence to God’s commandments, what strategies do we see in scripture that might move us in that direction? Are we ourselves leading the way, not merely by putting pieces of scripture in public view, not merely by talking about how we need “God back in schools,” but by living in the way of Jesus ourselves and demonstrating through the way we live that obeying God is not only good for us but a way to true joy and peace?