Mark 4:3–12 (NKJV): 3 “Listen! Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And it happened, as he sowed, that some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds of the air came and devoured it. 5 Some fell on stony ground, where it did not have much earth; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up it was scorched, and because it had no root it withered away. 7 And some seed fell among thorns; and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. 8 But other seed fell on good ground and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred.”
9 And He said to them, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
10 But when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parable. 11 And He said to them, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, 12 so that ‘Seeing they may see and not perceive, And hearing they may hear and not understand; Lest they should turn, And their sins be forgiven them.’ ”
Here we now have one of the most well known parables. But apparently no one got it. Those that that were around Him with the twelve, are the only ones who ask Him what it means. We can assume that those that were not with them did not get it, because Jesus designed it that way. I can hear the Calvanist now demanding that we interpret this through the lens of predestination as those without never were chosen, so they could not understand it. But whether or not that theological position is correct, has nothing to do with Jesus keeping the parable hidden to some. Clearly the ability to turn and have their sins forgiven is within the power of those who seek it, as the verb is in the active (the subject is doing the action) voice. Jesus uses the parable as a means of differentiating between those that have a desire for the things of God, and those that don't. If all the people who heard the parable of the sower came to Jesus asking Him for the interpretation, they would also have been included ("to you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God"). But they do not come to Him, but go away with their own ideas of what it means. Many today do the same. They never come to Jesus asking for clarity in understanding the scriptures, but go around with their own convoluted interpretations. It should be said that God desires to save people, people that desire Him and will come to Him in spirit and in truth.