How I Know the Whole System is Wrong

I was listening to an mp3 of a Bible Answer Man radio program from around 1996 (#471 on James White's website: http://www.aomin.org/). They talked a bit about sola fide, and Roman Catholic apologist Tim Staples threw in something from Romans 2 to justify (pardon the pun) the idea that you have to continue to do right in order to get eternal life (I think he was referring to Romans 2:6-7 "He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life;"). He took this out of context. Clearly, Romans 3 talks of another righteousness, another way to be right with God. Romans 3:21-22 says: "But now a righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, a righteousness of God through the faith of Jesus Christ for all who believe...."

Later that week, when James White and Tim Staples debated sola scriptura (or maybe it was 4 years later, when they debated papal infallibility, #487 on James White's website), during Q&A, someone asked Tim Staples, roughly, "What is the Gospel? And what must I do to be saved?" Staples replied to the first question that the Gospel is all that Jesus commands us, through the Church. He replied to the second question that we must give full intellectual and willful assent to all that the Church teaches.

That's not what the Bible says. In answer to the question, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus said, in John 6:29,40 "29. The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.... 40. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." Paul and Silas said, in Acts 16:31: "And they said, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."