The New Church also offers another wonderful tool: it gives us the key to unlock the inner meaning of the Bible. It makes more of the Bible relevant to our own lives. A lot of the Bible is relevant - there are many beautiful, clear teachings in Scripture, and we can use them. But there are also many teachings that are unclear. Some of the laws of the Old Testament seem picky, and completely irrelevant to our lives today. Some of the prophecies don't even seem to make sense, let alone help us become better people.
The New Church teaches that the Bible has a deeper level of meaning and that the whole Bible is a parable explaining our personal spiritual development. All the stories about wars, love and hate are stories about our spiritual victories, failures, and development. The story of creation is not necessarily trying to tell us how God created the world; its true purpose is to describe how God brings our spirits to life when we follow Him. All those laws about which animals you can eat and what to do if you get a rash, are actually eternal laws about how our spirits operate and about how we can treat others.
Here is an example: Suppose someone borrows something from you, and you want something of theirs as security so they will pay you back. The Old Testament states that you are forbidden to go into the debtor's house to demand it. You have to stay outside, and they can bring it out to you. Why would the God of heaven and earth make such a law part of His revelation to humankind?
The reason is that this law describes a spiritual principle about respecting other people's right to make up their own minds about accepting what is true. You can imagine someone charging into a person's house, looking for the most valuable thing they could find to take. That way they would be sure the person would pay them back. Spiritually, this law means that you are not allowed to use your friendship or authority to force people to accept your way of seeing things. Instead, you need to stand on the outside of their "house," or mind, tell them what you believe, and let them decide for themselves.
Every story in the Word is like that law. Every detail of every story contains a level of meaning that has direct application to our lives.