It is in this year, the second year of prosperity, a year in which the miracle of the recovery from famine was past and they were now able to return to the idea that this level of wealth was normal: it is in this year that “there began to be great contentions among the people of the church.” There were certainly those in Zarahemla who had not been members of the church prior to the famine who remained apart from the church. As previously noted, those people tended to follow the mode of worldly thought. Thus even for those who had joined the church, the evidence of their old ways was continually before them, and there were still those in the community who believed that way.
In this case, there are those in the church who are returning to the worldly ways, even though they are in the church. Their return is sufficient that it appears to even exceed those who had not joined the church. This division between the desire to follow the world and the desire to continue to follow God is the heart of internal Nephite social problems. Those problems are beginning again, and heating up fast.