What are priesthood keys?

[2bizE]

Several years ago the bishop stood up and corrected me after a talk regarding a reference I made to priesthood keys. I went home and sure enough on lds.org I found exactly what I said. Which only solidified my opinion: No one has a clue what they're talking about. I'm not saying I know anything either, because I don't, only that you can find just as many church approved quotes backing up church teachings/concepts as you can find in disagreement. And there many doctrinal ideas/teachings/concepts for which there is very little or very contradictory information. Priesthood, keys, sealings, revelation, Holy Ghost, etc. You'd think this would make Sunday School remarkably interesting, but no...

So what did the BP correct you on? I agree that no one knows what they are as they are always explained differently?

[moksha]

The original idea of "keys" was literal. Keys here at the time of King Hezekiah of Judah are fairly new invention and quite nifty.

Got to admire the nod toward technology. Many a nerd would sit up and pay attention at the mention of a Priesthood Genetic Scanner unlocking our way to exaltation. If we ever found ourselves locked out, we could pray for a favorable gene sequence.

[MerrieMiss]

Several years ago the bishop stood up and corrected me after a talk regarding a reference I made to priesthood keys. I went home and sure enough on lds.org I found exactly what I said. Which only solidified my opinion: No one has a clue what they're talking about. I'm not saying I know anything either, because I don't, only that you can find just as many church approved quotes backing up church teachings/concepts as you can find in disagreement. And there many doctrinal ideas/teachings/concepts for which there is very little or very contradictory information. Priesthood, keys, sealings, revelation, Holy Ghost, etc. You'd think this would make Sunday School remarkably interesting, but no...

So what did the BP correct you on? I agree that no one knows what they are as they are always explained differently?

I wasn't really talking about keys in my talk, so that wasn't the problem and I don't want to derail the topic, but here it is: I was talking about Moses and as a very brief aside said something about Moses restoring keys to the priesthood and was corrected that Moses didn't restore any keys, it was Peter, James, and John. A simple google search shows that according LDS teachings, there were many keys restored in the early church and Moses was responsible for those involving the gathering of Israel. From lds.org:

After this vision closed, Joseph and Oliver saw three separate visions in which ancient prophets appeared to them to restore priesthood keys necessary for the latter-day work of the Lord. The prophet Moses appeared and committed to them “the keys of the gathering of Israel from the four parts of the earth.” Elias came and committed to them “the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham.” (See D&C 110:11–12.)

I get what happened and why, but it made me feel like an idiot and I held a lot of anger at the bishop for a long time after that (a lot of the anger I think came from the fact I felt that my husband sided with the bishop - again, I understand why he felt this way, but I was mad about it all the same). I've heard hundreds of stupid, false, unkind things from the pulpit that have never been corrected, but I was corrected for saying something that's on the church's own website. In fact, the anger didn't go until I mentally uncoupled myself from the church.

This all happened near the beginning of my faith transition and I really believed I could be a progressive and positive change in the church. It was just one experience where I realized that people really don't know their stuff, it's all a game of semantics, and that as a woman, I'd never be right about anything. I doubt the bishop would have corrected a man who said the same thing.

So what are keys? Theologically speaking I haven't a clue. In practice I have to say they're used to gain obedience, to bully, and to manipulate.