Please unpack this verse below for me based upon what you've just shared. I've sought God for revelation for decades, but received nothing.
JAM 3:5 So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell.
I'd start with the cautionary words of verse 3:1 by way of disclaimer:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
In context, it's probably a fairly standard reading that the admonition is to control one's tongue especially 'in the heat of the moment' or 'when under fire', as it were. He's highlighting how 'loose lips sink ships' and one thoughtless remark can mess up the rest of your life.
Does the figurative use of the term Gehenna in this context shed light on Gehenna/ LOF eschatology? Probably no more than you'd get insight into mine if I told you 'The boss gave me hell but I managed to keep from saying something I'd later regret.'
That said, I'll have a try. Gehenna is that place where we 'get a taste of our own medicine' on the reaping/sowing justice principle (correction for restoration). God's holy perfect presence exposes our works and the folly of our self-righteousness, the wood hay and stubble of our false identities.
Hence the burning feeling we experience in normal life in shame, humiliation or injured pride.('You called me a what?!') It's the process of destruction of sin, and it can only burn while the sin persists.
In verse 11 he contrasts fresh and salt water, which reminds me immediately of Jesus in Mk 9:49-50, after warning of the seriousness of Gehenna:
For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt among yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
It's the same kind of sentiment as 'blessed are you when you're reviled' (Mt 5:11) or 'For your sake we're slaughtered as sheep all day long' (Rom 8:36), or 'He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word' (Is 53:7). Turn the other cheek. Have grace under fire. Repay evil with good etc.
So James is maybe using it to remind us that 'truth hurts', as it unexpectedly provokes, hits a nerve, presses our buttons, confronts the illusions we hold dear and offends our sense of justice, dignity and righteousness (eg I'll never deny you Jesus, I'm an honest person, manipulation has value, I'm not an addict, wild drunken orgies are just harmless fun). Teachers in particular need to take care because of the puffery of knowledge and authority that goes with the territory.
Probably a bit undercooked, any benefit?
