Interpret the OT through Christ Lenses

I prefer to write rather than quote in my blogs, but I just happened upon this from Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict:

"For the Christian, the Old Testament represents, in its totality, an advance towards Christ; only when it attains to him does its real meaning, which was gradually hinted at, become clear. Thus every individual part derives its meaning from the whole, and the whole derives its meaning from its end--from Christ. Hence we only interpret an individual text correctly (as the fathers of the Church recognized and as the faith of the Church in every age has recognized) when we see it as a way that is leading us ever forward, when we see in the text where this way is tending and what its inner direction is." ~ J. Ratzinger, In the Beginning: A Catholic Understanding of the Story of Creation and the Fall (Eerdmans, 1995), pp. 9-10.

In other words, the OT derives its meaning from its end -- goal, purpose, God-designed destination -- Christ. Therefore readers of the OT have to be careful to interpret with Christ-as-the-full-revelation-of-God in mind.