<p>4:11 <i>And he said to them: To you is given the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those that are without, all things are done in parables- </i>The Lord explained that parables only remained incomprehensible to &quot;them that are without&quot;. That phrase seems to have stuck with Paul; he uses it five times. Perhaps he saw that a characteristic of the believers, those separated from the world of darkness, was that they understood the parables; and this would explain Paul's frequent allusion to them, stressing as he does the need to appreciate their power. Those &ldquo;without&rdquo; in His other teaching clearly refer to those rejected at the judgment, who will stand &ldquo;without&rdquo; begging for admission to the Kingdom (Lk. 13:25; Rev. 20:15). But those &lsquo;without&rsquo; in Mk. 4:11 are those who chose not to understand the Lord&rsquo;s teaching, for whom it&rsquo;s all parables, fascinating perhaps, but confusing, unclear, and not something they are really bothered to understand. This connection of thought doesn&rsquo;t mean that intellectual clarity of understanding alone decides who will be, indeed who is, within or without of the Kingdom. But it is all the same true that the Kingdom life both now and in the future requires us to understand so that we might believe and live and be as the Lord requires. See on Jn. 16:25.</p><p>The things which God has prepared for those who love Him, things which the natural eye has not seen but&nbsp;which are revealed unto us by the Spirit, relate to our redemption in Christ, rather than the wonders of the future political Kingdom (because Mt. 13:11; 16:17 = 1 Cor. 2:9,10). The context of 1 Cor. 2 and the allusions to Isaiah there demand the same interpretation.</p>