Well, same here vis-a-vis various Protestant/Baptist groups.
Clearly your understanding of what the Key to the Kingdom is why your church preaches a works based salvation rather than The Gospel. Only God determines who is and is not saved, not clerics. Believing The Gospel is the Key.
How biblical is that? Not very. The Gospel (Matthew 5) tells us what we have to do or how we have to be to inherit the kingdom, and to see God. Try reading the Beatitudes. No faith required there. And as far as what the keys being the authority given to the Apostles, the NT couldn't be clearer:
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." [Mat 16:19]
Nothing ambiguous about it. The Lord gives the same authority to the rest in Mat 18:18, and the Lord gives the apostles the authority to forgive sins:
"If you [apostles] forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven." [John 20:23 ]
I don't know. Maybe we don't read the same Bible.
It's that works theology that has you so turned around. I know it's very hard to turn away from. My father-in-law was EO, but praise the LORD before he died he accepted Christ as his Saviour. I read the Beatitudes and see faith.
I don't know. Maybe we don't read the same Bible.
Clearly we don't. I understand what I must do.
John 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them. "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom he sent."
OTOH, you have made it clear you believe men have the power over your salvation. I don't. My faith is in Jesus.
No faith required???
"Whatsover is not of faith is sin." -- Romans 14:23
How is a man saved? By simply being "meek?" By simply becoming "poor in spirit?" By simply having "hunger?"
Or do the meek and the poor in spirit and the hungry become saved by being given faith in Jesus Christ to satisfy all their needs?
"And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." -- John 6:35
"He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water." -- John 7:38
"Be not afraid; only believe." -- Mark 5:36
No wonder Luther was so furious when he opened the Bible and read it and saw how far the then-prevailing church had strayed from God's word.
Post Tenebras Lux.
Maybe we don't read the same Bible.
It's not the Bible that differs, but our eyes and ears.
"Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments." -- Psalm 119:73