This is a very fine presentation about the battlefield of hermeneutics. As a Lutheran pastor who has worked stateside and in Africa and India, I have used what this author writes of with Christ at the center and people see that we are in the Scriptures very clearly. When our Lord said, You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me...Jn. 5:39, they only had the Old Testament. Our Lord Jesus is at the heart and center of the Old Testament as well as the new. And on literal and figurative interpretation, we take the literal interpretation unless the context or other passages indicate it is figurative language. Scripture interprets Scripture. As the author points up, God is the author and this must not be undermined in any way.
Christ at the center of EVERY verse in the Bible. Okay I will play; Here is a couple picked at random, show me "Christ at the Center" of each of them.
1Chronicles 27:2 Over the first course for the first month was Jashobeam the son of Zabdiel: and in his course were twenty and four thousand.
1Ch 27:3 He was of the children of Perez, the chief of all the captains of the host for the first month.
Numbers 2:2 The children of Israel shall encamp every man by his own standard, with the ensigns of their fathers' houses: over against the tent of meeting shall they encamp round about.
Judges 16:1 And Samson went to Gaza, and saw there a harlot, and went in unto her.
Please show me Christ at the Center" of each of these.
Well said! I agree completely.