What frames what?  That’s the question.  The rule of faith, the rule of analogy, that Scripture interprets Scripture is a wise (and biblical) principle of interpretation.  Of course, there is a direction in redemptive history, a process (and progress) of revelation: the prophets interpret and unfold the Law of Moses, applying the Sinaitic covenant in all its implications to the ‘vassal’ nation, and the apostles interpret the Gospel of Jesus Christ, applying the new covenant realities to the new community of God’s people.  Yet, we cannot rightly understand the Prophets without the Pentateuch (a friend of mine once said that Deuteronomy is the ‘systematic theology’ of Israel’s prophets),  nor can the apostles (and the apostolic kerygma) be rightly understood apart from the ‘gospel’ of Jesus Christ, His life and teachings, death, and resurrection, which God in His wisdom has preserved for us in the form a four-fold Gospel.

So, sometimes Jesus frames John.  Sometimes Peter frames Paul.  Sometimes Jude frames Jesus!  And vice versa.  But, if we understand the apostolic office as was ordained by Jesus, it seems unwise to pit one against the other, to force an either/or in the case of an apparent tension (e.g., the common confusion of pitting Paul against Jesus in 1Cor.7:10-12 in many interpretations).  Rather than pick and choose, I think constructive theology seeks a ‘frame’ that comprehends all aspects of our scriptures harmoniously.  This, I think, is the way forward toward a theology that is both creative and faithful.  

Regarding Jesus’ teachings about ‘gehenna’, I think all agree that his language is metaphorical (i.e., Jesus was not refering to a literal valley of perpetual fire outside of Jerusalem).  And so his audience would have understood it.  To quote from wikipedia (i know, an autoritative source), "Jesus used the word gehenna …and his audience understood quite well that gehenna meant a place of condemnation, for in contemporary Jewish belief "gehenna" was a term for a transcendent (or subterranean) place of eternal punishment."  Thus Jesus appealed to the ‘mythology’ of his audience in his teachings about divine judgment (as does Peter, in refering to the Greek concept of Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4, which was essentially identical to the Hebrew concept of Gehenna).

  I would not then compare such metaphor to the parabolic language of ‘mustard seed’, ‘coin’, etc.  In parables there is an element of allegory, in which certain aspects of the kingdom or the Son of Man are likened to common objects or practices that would have been familiar to Jesus’ hearers.  The language concerning hell however is not itself parabolic.  He uses this language in non-parabolic discourses (e.g., Matthew 23:33).  In fact, Jesus employs the language of eternal judgment and fire in interpreting his parable of the wheat and the tares for the disciples in ‘plain terms’ they would understand (Matthew 13:41-42). 

So, it would seem that Paul and Jesus, or John and Jesus, all employing metaphors of fire (whether flames descending from heaven or pooled in lakes), spoke of an eternal judgment that awaited those who disobey the gospel of the kingdom.  The language of torment (gnashing of teeth, etc.) is also ‘metaphorical’; yet it seems clear that the reality of real torment is meant to be thus conveyed to Jesus’ audience. 

Ugghh.  Maybe we should get the hell off this topic! 

What contextualizes Jesus’ teachings of eternal life and reclining at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven?