The Goal of Interpretation

I am concerned as a Christian theologian to penetrate these texts of Scripture and grapple with the reality which called ... them forth. Can we use both these sets of testimony [i.e. the Old and New Testaments] to guide us to God himself and to speak of his creation? In my opinion, this is the goal of interpretation as a discipline of the Christian church.

B.S. Childs, "Psalm 8 in the Context of the Christian Canon," in Interpretation 23/1 (1969), 20-31.