Louisiana public schools – from elementary schools to colleges, are now legally obligated to display the Ten Commandments in all classrooms, after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry signed the requirement into law Wednesday, www.cnn.com confirmed on June 19, 2024. This enacting is a good decision, because “the law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, and righteous, and good.” (Romans 7:12). However, this definition is valid for the biblical version of the Ten Commandments only (Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:6-21).

The newly enacted law makes sense indeed, if it means the canonic biblical version of the Ten Commandments only, known as God’s law as well, and the question asked by Christ in Luke 10:26 - “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” - is very important in this case. Because in the Roman catechism’s version of the Ten Commandments, the second commandment - “You shall not make a carved image for yourself—any likeness of what is in heaven above, or what is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow yourself down to them, nor serve them” (Deuteronomy 5:8-9) – is missing, while the tenth commandment - “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Deuteronomy 5:21) – is divided into two parts - “You shall not covet your neighbor's wife” and “You shall not covet your neighbor's goods”, in order to keep the ten as a total number despite the deleted second commandment, and in the fourth commandment - “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. You shall labor six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to Yahweh your God. You shall not do any work in it, you, nor your son, nor your daughter, your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your livestock, nor your stranger who is within your gates; 11for in six days Yahweh made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the Sabbath day, and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11), considered in the catechism as the third one, God’s expression “the Sabbath day” is replaced by the phrase “the Lord’s day”.

The Ten Commandments Monument in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA; a photo by Wikipedia.

Written by Margarit Zhekov