Mark 4:10-12

¹⁰ When he was alone, the Twelve and the others around him asked him about the parables. ¹¹ He told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables ¹² so that, “‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

These verses are among the most difficult to understand in the New Testament and have been widely debated by scholars. However, there is no generally accepted interpretation. They focus on the mystery of why some people believe the gospel while others do not but it is debatable whether Mark really offers us much of an answer here. Even the disciples don’t understand and ask for an explanation.

By way of an explanation, Jesus tells them that those on the “outside” will only have parables. A division exists between those who hear the word and, indeed, of how much they get to hear. But what is the basis of this division?

On important point seems to be that those who receive an explanation are those who ask for it. Many in the crowd can’t seem to be bothered to discover more. Jesus suggests here that there are insiders and outsiders and that brings us back to his earlier meeting with his family: they were “outside” and not part of the circle around him.

Secrecy is a theme of Mark. We’ve already seen how Jesus orders people he has cured not to talk about it. Not everyone apparently can grasp that a group of itinerant peasants signify the advent of the kingdom of God. The parable of the sower has just illustrated this.

In verse 12, Jesus gives us a shortened quotation from Isaiah 6:9-10. Just before this, Isaiah has had a vision of God in the temple. At the end, God sends him out to proclaim his message to the people but they will not listen. Jesus will face this same problem.

But the most difficult part of this passage is the last part of verse 12 which suggests that God wants his warning to fail. However, it would be wrong to interpret from this that God wants to send people to Hell. The point is that some people choose to be outsiders; that it is part of their nature and parables simply reveal this. It is not the sowing of the seed that ruins the soil but the state of the soil that determines what will happen to the seed.

A further problem is that this passage does not tell us how outsiders can become insiders, for this is clearly possible. The disciples were once outsiders and will become so again for a while (at the time of the crucifixion they will flee and even deny Jesus). The mystery of the kingdom of God causes blindness and deafness in part at least because it is something humans do not want to hear – that God’s will is made manifest in suffering and the cross. In the gospel of Mark, God’s will is that Jesus should suffer and die and Jesus accepts God’s will. Jesus’ family consists of those who also accept God’s will.