Listening to: Regina Spektor: Soviet Kitsch
You can read the OT as purely the religious literature of the Ancient Israelites. In that way it may have parallels, and be compared and contrasted with the NT message of Jesus Christ. It also may provide case studies of experiences of God from which similarities and differences to our experiences can be observed. In this way it can provide important lessons for us.
I suggest that this is how the OT is often read. It's audience is assumed dead, and the situation it spoke into is entirely past. In that sense it is now a "word spoken into empty space". Having considered the original situation the reader and preacher then moves onto "stage 2: application". Application is then done by taking the second step of imagining what the different word spoken by the same God would be to us in our situation. God is no longer speaking to us directly, but we try and work out what he would say to us if he were speaking now.
An alternative way of reading the Bible is to understand it as prophecy. That this is the fullest way of understanding the Bible was seen by the Jews who included even historical books within "the Prophets", and by Jesus and the NT writers who understood all the books of the OT (inc law, Psalms, history etc) as "fulfilled" in their day.
What is the content of this prophecy? In the first instance it is prophecy about Jesus. Jesus says all the Bible is about him, not just those that we see as odd prophecies of the Messiah.
But, as the likes of Richard Hays have noticed, Paul (and the other NT writers) interpret the OT ecclesiocentrically as often as they interpret it Christocentrically. They can do both because the church is "in Christ" his body. The one is not opposed to the other.
As an example you could consider the story of David and Goliath.
Many would say that this was a story which provides an example of the person of faith. We could say that there are similarities between the "giants" David faced and our battles, and notice how we also have to exercise faith. Of course we would also note that there are also differences so we can't draw too close a parallel. The problem is that the awareness of the differences so blunts the force that we wouldn't be able to really grasp it as a promise to us. Christ would simultaneously be sidelined at the same time as his church is. We are left on the sidelines looking at God's word to and about someone other than Christ or us.
In contrast, Christocentrically we could note that actually this is prophesying the coming of the greater Davidic King Jesus. We would also see that the fulfilment of the death of one man representing a sinful people was Jesus Christ too. But seeing it as prophecy we would not say that this is a 'spiritual meaning' or 'additional meaning' but the primary reading of the text.
Ecclesiocentrically we can see that the story of David and Goliath is prophesying that we as Gentile mockers will be put to death. But we will also see that anointed by the Holy Spirit we are also going to be victorious over the enemies of God, including our sin and death, so the grave will hold us no stronger than it held Christ.
[This is a rather rushed attempt to explain to Steve what I have got out of Wingren's quotation. I may try to do better sometime]
