Internal Challenges to the Kingdom

The reality of a new community sharing in the life of the resurrected Messiah, while yet existing within the old order, initiated and insured conflict between Jesus' disciples and the unbelieving world, both Jewish and Gentile. But it also insured internal conflicts and challenges, not only between believers, but within the minds and hearts of individual Christians. And the marrow of that conflict, whatever particular form it might take, is the failure of unity - the unity in Christ that the Spirit initiated at Pentecost and that binds believers to their Lord and to one another.