Once the commander decided, the staff members put disagreements aside and worked together in unity to attain the objective that the commander prescribed. When I was in military staff meetings there were often arguments and debates over how we should accomplish an objective but in the end our commander made the decision. They may not always speak on their own authority, but more often speak the desires of those in authority over them.

He would not speak on His own authority, but whatever He heard from Jesus He would speak (John 16:13). In the next step down the chain of command, Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit, who would guide His followers in all truth. He also said in the Gospels that He always obeyed the Father–doing nothing on His own account. In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus stated that all authority was given to Him. Let’s apply this spiritually by looking at the Trinity and the Body of Christ. This builds trust up and down the chain of command and produces freedom and flexibility throughout all of the force structures. The theory is that there is control at the top but freedom down the line at each echelon for individual commanders to make decisions. He delegates decision-making down through the chain of command this is called centralized control with de-centralized execution. However, he does not personally make all war-fighting decisions.

As CINC, he is ultimately responsible for war-fighting decisions. Our military has a Commander-In-Chief (CINC), the President of the United States. The military definition of Unity of Command (UOC) is: “For every objective, one person is responsible for war-fighting decisions.” 1 Later I applied them to Christian living. Do the military principles of war apply to Christian living? When I learned these principles in Air War College, I found all of them in the Bible.

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