Question:
How should we look at the Old Testament? Literal or figurative? We definitely can learn from it, but how should we look at it in order to use it today?

Answer:
First Corinthians 10:11 says: “Now all these things [in the Old Testament] happened unto them for [examples]: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:16, 17).

Christ came to fulfil (or complete) the law (Matthew 5:17), and to bring in a new testament as He says in Matthew 5:38, 39. “Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:’ but I say unto you, ‘That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.'” “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The Old Testament shows we could not in ourselves live by the law, and had fallen short of God’s standard, and therefore we needed Christ. “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (Galatians 3:24).And Christians will fulfil the law if they are living for Christ. “For what the Law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:3, 4).