Mark 4:11 Commentary - Whedon's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

11. Them that are without The division between the within and the without was a very customary one with ancient philosophers. Those within were the people who listened and received their philosophy and became learned; those without were the common mass of men, who remained in unphilosophical ignorance. From the Greek words which designate this difference were derived the English words exoteric and esoteric. The exoteric, or those without, in Christianity, are not those who are incapable of learning for the Gospel is not, like a philosophy, abstruse and difficult but they are those who refuse to be wise when the Gospel, simple enough for a child, proposes to make them wiser than philosophy can make them.