What hath Sanders wrought?

What may we conclude from these heated and often confused debates in the wake of Sanders? In large measure, they revolve around unexamined assumptions and predetermined decisions concerning the meaning of the term “grace.” Even when a definition is provided, its historical and cultural roots are generally left unexamined, as if the concept had some essential meaning across all times and cultures. That Sanders meant by “grace” the priority of God’s initiative in election, but sometimes added the language of “unmerited” (that is, incongruous) grace, is one cause of the subsequent confusion. But it is also often the case that a particular definition, accorded a structural role in the thesis to be argued, is taken for granted as obvious, “typical,” or “common.”—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 174