• This joint planning methodology directly mirrors the parallel procedures found in Army doctrine under FM 5-0 / FM 6-0 / FM 3-0 for the Military Decision-Making Process

The Great Commission—recorded in Matthew 28:16–20—stands as one of the most defining and foundational passages in Christian scripture. Delivered by the resurrected Christ to His disciples on a mountain in Galilee just before His ascension, this final directive serves as the marching orders for the global Christian Church.

At its core, the passage bridges Christ’s earthly ministry with the ongoing mission of His followers:

The Great Commission  

¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷ When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Applying this to a military analogy to the Great Commission, the stated tasks are identified in the Bible.  Sola Scriptura is the Protestant doctrine that the Bible is the only infallible authority for Christian faith and practice.

Questions

• Doesn’t every Christian denomination have to come up with interpretations and explanations (implied tasks)?
• Do the Catholics and Orthodox Christians have the most thorough research and explanations?

ChatGPT Response:

Yes. Your military decision-making analogy provides a very useful framework for examining the Great Commission, and I think it exposes an important issue in the differences between Christian traditions.

Your central observation is correct: Every Christian denomination must identify, interpret, and execute tasks that are not explicitly spelled out in the mission statement itself. The disagreement is largely about how those implied tasks are identified, who has authority to identify them, and how the Church ensures that its interpretation remains faithful to the original mission.

Let’s work through this using your military planning framework.

1. Identify the stated tasks: Matthew 28:16–20

THE MISSION STATEMENT — THE GREAT COMMISSION

“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” — Matthew 28:19–20 (KJV)

We can identify four principal stated tasks:

There is also an important enabling condition: Christ’s authority and his promise to remain with his disciples.

2. Identify the implied tasks

This is where your analogy becomes particularly interesting.

A military commander cannot simply issue an order to accomplish a mission without identifying the supporting tasks necessary to accomplish it.

Likewise, the Great Commission does not explicitly describe every activity necessary to make disciples of all nations.

For example:

Notice something important: These are not necessarily optional activities. They are logical requirements, or at least important means, for accomplishing the stated mission.

However, we must distinguish between an implied task that is genuinely necessary and a preferred method of accomplishing a task.

For example, establishing churches is a reasonable implication of making disciples. Requiring every church to use a particular organizational structure is a further interpretive conclusion.

That distinction becomes very important when comparing denominations.

3. Does every denomination have to develop interpretations and explanations?

Absolutely.

Even denominations that strongly emphasize Sola Scriptura must interpret Scripture to determine how to execute the Great Commission.

Sola Scriptura means Scripture is the ultimate and sufficient authority for Christian doctrine, not that Scripture eliminates the need for interpretation, teaching, historical research, or theological reasoning.

Consider some questions that Matthew 28 does not explicitly answer:

• • What exactly constitutes making a disciple?

• • What is the proper understanding of baptism?

• • Who has the authority to baptize?

• • What does it mean to teach someone to observe everything Christ commanded?

• • How should churches be organized?

• • How should Christian doctrine be preserved and transmitted?

• • How should disagreements about biblical interpretation be resolved?

Every Christian tradition must answer these questions.

The difference is in the sources of authority they recognize when answering them.

4. Comparing Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant approaches

Here is where your observation about Catholic and Orthodox Christianity deserves serious consideration.

One important qualification: Catholicism and Orthodoxy are not identical in their understanding of authority. For example, Catholicism recognizes the distinctive teaching authority of the pope, whereas Eastern Orthodoxy understands authority through the episcopate, councils, and the Church’s conciliar tradition.

5. Do Catholic and Orthodox Christians have the most thorough research and explanations?

I would distinguish between two different questions.

Question A: Which traditions have the most extensive historical and institutional theological development?

Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have particularly extensive bodies of historical theology.

They have accumulated centuries of:

• • Biblical interpretation.

• • Theological scholarship.

• • Ecclesiastical councils.

• • Formal doctrinal definitions.

• • Liturgical development.

• • Writings from bishops, theologians, and Church Fathers.

• • Methods for addressing doctrinal disputes.

This is an important historical reality.

Question B: Does that necessarily mean their interpretations are always the most accurate or authoritative?

That is a different question.

The volume, age, and institutional continuity of theological research do not, by themselves, establish that every theological conclusion is correct.

Protestant traditions also have substantial bodies of scholarship, including biblical languages, historical theology, systematic theology, and textual criticism.

The underlying disagreement is about the authority by which theological conclusions are validated.

6. Applying your military planning framework more completely

I would take your analogy one step further.

In military planning, identifying implied tasks is not enough. You must also identify essential tasks.

An essential task is one that must be accomplished for the mission to succeed.

Applying that principle to the Great Commission:

This gives us an important distinction:

The Great Commission establishes the mission. Scripture provides the doctrinal foundation. The Church must interpret, organize, and execute the mission.

The remaining question is how the Church determines whether its implied tasks and methods are faithful to Christ’s instructions.

7. An important biblical consideration: Who was originally responsible for executing the mission?

There is another passage I would put alongside Matthew 28:16–20.

In Acts 2:42, the early Christians devoted themselves to:

• • The apostles’ teaching.

• • Fellowship.

• • Breaking of bread.

• • Prayers.

This is significant because it provides an early picture of how the apostolic community organized its life following Christ’s commission.

It suggests that the Great Commission was not understood simply as an individual evangelism assignment. It involved establishing and maintaining a community of disciples grounded in apostolic teaching and worship.

That gives us an important historical question:

If Christ commissioned the apostles, and the apostles established the early Church, shouldn’t the practices and teachings of that early Church be important evidence when determining how the Great Commission was intended to be executed?

Catholics and Orthodox Christians would answer that question emphatically in the affirmative.

Many Protestants would agree that the early Church is important evidence, while maintaining that its teachings and practices must ultimately be tested against Scripture.

My assessment of your central argument

I think you are identifying a legitimate weakness in simplistic presentations of Sola Scriptura.

Sometimes the argument is presented as though reading the Bible alone eliminates the need for an interpretive authority or a theological framework.

But that is not how Christian communities actually function.

Even a congregation that claims to follow the Bible alone must make interpretive decisions about baptism, communion, church leadership, discipleship, worship, and doctrine.

The real debate is not whether interpretation is necessary. It is who has the authority to interpret, what sources inform that interpretation, and how the Church distinguishes faithful interpretation from error.

I would leave you with one particularly important question:

If Jesus gave the Great Commission to the apostles, and those apostles established the Church, should we understand the Church’s subsequent teachings, practices, and historical continuity as merely optional reference material, or as essential evidence for understanding how Christ intended his mission to be carried out?

That question gets to the heart of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant disagreements about Scripture, Tradition, and Church authority.

Epilogue

This Question and Answer (Q&A) process reminds me of a class where students and the professor interact, with roles that are interchangeable.  I ask questions, review responses, and can follow up with more questions.  In addition to a post or article, some sessions became so extensive they could be published in a book. (An example: Quality Leadership Matters: A Journey of Discovery in the Age of Artificial Intelligence).

ChatGPT Response:

I like the classroom analogy. It captures something important about our discussion: learning is not necessarily a one-way process in which a teacher delivers information and a student simply receives it. Questions, challenges, follow-up questions, and reflection can deepen the understanding of both participants.

Here is a polished version that preserves your conversational tone:

Reminds me of taking a class where there is an ongoing interaction between students and the professor. The roles can be interchangeable: I ask questions, examine the responses, challenge assumptions, and follow up with more questions.

Through that process, ideas are explored, perspectives are challenged, and understanding develops. Eventually, the discussion can be summarized in a post or paper, benefiting both the teacher and the student.

In a sense, that’s what this discussion has become. We are exploring Scripture, theology, history, and the implications of what we believe. The objective isn’t simply to get answers, but to ask better questions and arrive at a deeper understanding.