The Texas State Legislature became the latest battleground for American lawmakers seeking to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. On Saturday, May 24, the Texas House of Representatives debated Senate Bill 10, which would require that a framed copy of the Ten Commandments be posted in every public-school classroom in the state. The debate on the house floor became uncomfortable when State Representative James Talarico asked the sponsor of the bill, Representative Candy Noble, what the fourth commandment says. After checking her notes and hearing reminders from a nearby aide, she stammered, “Keep the Sabbath. . . . It’s about us being here on Saturday! Is that ironic or what?”
You can see the video of the exchange here: Ten Commandments bill exchange between Rep. Talarico and Rep. Noble.
The Texas House rarely convenes on Saturdays, but a special session was called for May 24 to help rush several bills forward before the 2025 legislative session closes on June 2. Talarico, a former public school teacher and a current ministerial student at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, was the final speaker against the bill after two and a half hours of debate.[i] Talarico asked Noble if she would be willing to postpone working on this bill so that they would not be breaking the Ten Commandments by violating the Sabbath. He argued that legislators behind this bill were more interested in telling other people to follow the Ten Commandments than in following the commandments themselves.
Shortly after Talarico’s speech, the house voted 88 to 49 to advance the bill. After some amendments were made, the bill was given final House approval the next day on Sunday, May 25. The bill will go back to the state senate before going to the desk of Texas governor Greg Abbott, who is expected to sign the bill into law.
Currently Louisiana is the only state that has successfully passed a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in school classrooms, but Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania have also introduced or are considering similar bills. Louisiana’s law was blocked by a federal judge who ruled that the law was unconstitutional, but the state is appealing the ruling, and the final outcome is yet to be determined.
Media from Texas quickly noted the incongruity of advancing a Ten Commandments bill on the Sabbath day. One local news station reacted with a video the same day titled Texas House Advances Bill to Require Ten Commandments in Every Classroom, After Vote on the Sabbath.[ii] This clever headline raises the question of which day truly is the Sabbath.
During their exchange, both Talarico and Noble agreed that Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath according to the commandment and that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath in honor of Christ’s resurrection. This question of how to define the Bible Sabbath is unavoidable for politicians debating the proper use of the Ten Commandments. As public scrutiny of the Sabbath intensifies, some people will find popular answers unsatisfying. They will be surprised to discover the lack of biblical support for the Sunday tradition.
The debate over posting the Ten Commandments also raises concern about which version of the Ten Commandments should be used. There are substantive differences between Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in how each faith states and interprets the Ten Commandments.[iii] Should we trust a government to do theology for us and decide which version is best for us? This is not a hypothetical question. The Texas legislators opted to go with an incredibly reduced version of the Ten Commandments derived primarily from King James verbiage.[iv] Only the opening phrases of the second and fourth commandments are quoted. This raises many concerns. Who gives them authority to decide which parts of the commandments are important and which parts can be removed?
Seventh-day Adventists have been preaching the importance of the Ten Commandments in America for more than 160 years, inviting people from all backgrounds to be among those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev. 14:12). Our message emphasizes the validity of all 10 of the commandments for New Testament Christians (James 2:10-12). Rather than doing away with the law, we believe the new covenant promises that God will write His law on our hearts (Heb. 8:10). Adventists have sometimes faced fierce opposition from other Christians who accuse Sabbathkeepers of legalism and argue that New Testament Christians need not keep the law.
Long ago, Adventists predicted the eventual moral decline of America that would come as a result of popular preachers undermining God’s law. In the 1880s Ellen G. White warned, “Those who teach the people to regard lightly the commandments of God sow disobedience to reap disobedience. Let the restraint imposed by the divine law be wholly cast aside, and human laws would soon be disregarded. . . . Property would no longer be safe. Men would obtain their neighbor’s possessions by violence, and the strongest would become richest. Life itself would not be respected. The marriage vow would no longer stand as a sacred bulwark to protect the family.”[v] Today Christians in America are deeply troubled by the rise of crime, the disregard of property, the devaluing(?) of human life, and the redefining of marriage. People find plenty of groups to blame for the deteriorating morals of society. And yet Christians struggle to take responsibility for the church’s contribution to the moral decay. The moral foundation of society has been weakened by churches that dismiss the validity of God’s law.
And now, to save society, Christians who inadvertently or unknowingly undermine God’s law as given at Sinai want the government to save the day and help restore God’s moral law (or at least the parts of the law they agree with). They are looking to the government to recover what many Christians have neglected for so long. We can agree that the government has a role to play in upholding those commandments that regulate our relationships with one another and keep communities safe—the so-called second table of the law. The dangerous part of this venture is government’ meddling with those laws that regulate our relationship with God.
The book of Revelation predicts a time when there will be a false religious revival that will lead to the image of the beast (Rev. 13:13, 14). Like the day of Pentecost, fire will fall from heaven once again (Acts 2:3). But this time it is a counterfeit spirit that results in a global religious deception. The image of the beast will be a very attractive program to people who are appalled by the moral decay of the world. It will be backed by miracles and supernatural events that will result in mass conversions to Christianity. The result will be a compromised form of worship enforced and regulated by law (Rev. 13:15-17).
Perhaps the contest over the Ten Commandments will eventually sort Christians into two groups: those who want to enforce worship through government mandates, and those who believe that salvation is only by faith and can never be forced. Could it be that Sabbathkeeping Christians who have been the most accused of legalism will be the final group defending salvation by faith and grace alone? After all, the Sabbath is about resting from our own works and placing complete trust in God’s righteousness.
As lawmakers do their best to save society, the spotlight will shift more and more to the Ten Commandments and the Sabbath. The exchange between Talarico and Noble will not be the last debate over these questions.
To read the original article, please go here.
[1]https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/religion/2025/05/25/522259/texas-house-passes-bill-requiring-display-of-the-ten-commandments-in-all-public-school-classrooms/
2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJyivKZpYHc
3 For more information about various versions of the Ten Commandments, check out “Thou shall not post the Ten Commandments with Marc Zvi Brettler | Just Liberty Podcast | Ep. 6.”
4 Read the bill at https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/pdf/SB00010I.pdf.
5 Ellen G. White, The Great Controversy (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1911), p. 585.
