We had to deal with someone acting in an official capacity do something wrong. I wasn't sure whether to "turn the other cheek" or "have nothing to do with the unfruitful deeds of darkness but rather expose them." There seem to be dueling Scripture verses. Another example is when Scripture commands us to love our enemies, yet David prayed for harm to befall his enemies in the imprecatory psalms. Another example is when Scripture states that "no one has ever seen God" and yet Moses is said to have seen God face to face.
How do you handle dueling Scripture verses? What do you do if you have a decision to make about a course of action and yet Scripture seems to oppose itself?
Context and emotional reaction.
The evil who come to us to force us to do something through domination, should not be resisted.
We are not interested in their wanting signs of dominance and control, they can have them.
But their behaviour in terms of evil deeds needs to be exposed and our behaviour is not to follow these deeds.
Often words in scripture are addressing particular people and their choices in life and how we are to approach them. If one does not have the same heart and view of the speaker of the approach it is easy to miss-understand. Scripture is full of sentences, which speak directly to particular situation and people, get that wrong and then the meaning is lost.
Loving ones enemies is to understand them and know why they are as they are. It does not mean one does not want justice or even their judgement, but it is about avoiding rejecting people because they disagree with us. The world is full of people who make their opponents evil and wrong as individuals because they hold a different position, while many hold positions because of their own hurtful and abused backgrounds, which if we had experienced we would also disagree with our own position.
No one has ever seen God, in the sense of dwelling with the Father, knowing Him, walking with Him. Clearly people have had encounters with God, but at a distance, where His throne was seen but not fully who He was. Isaiah says
"my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty" Isaiah 6:5
he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Exodus 33:20
We can see the form of God but not His face. Seeing His face is profound intimacy, that will kill us unless we are in Christ. Jesus says this about himself
"Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" John 14:9
Seeing Jesus is seeing Gods heart, His purity, His holiness and His truth.
Contradictions in scripture do appear, but in Christ they are no more. But to find the answers we must risk everything we hold dear and be prepared to walk away if it turns out to be false. How great is your love and desire to know Christ? How wonderful is the work He is doing in your heart that you might see the fruit of God working in man. God bless you