Spiritual leadership always have the responsibility to protect the people of God, not make friends with his enemies. And yet how common is it for high-profile pastors—I use the term as lightly as possible—to do that very thing. Notice their response: we do not have anything in common with you! In other words, to put it in New Testament terminology: what have you to do with us? The answer is: obviously, nothing! Or to put it in a different way, in the way Tertullian put it in the middle of the third century: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? In other words, the leaders were absolutely clear that these people are not under the same authority as us. They do not believe in the same God as us. They do not share the same worldview as us. We do not have any common ground with them. Nothing. Why would we let you join in building a temple to our God when we do not even have anything in common?...In other words, they remained exclusive and separated, in order to maintain the integrity of the people and the integrity of the mission.1
Brian Borgman
3 But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of fathers’ houses in Israel said to them, “You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the LORD, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”