Why Did Jesus Tell Some People Not to Tell Anyone About Their Healings?

No explicit reason for this is ever given, so you could come up with various explanations for this and I’d never be able to prove conclusively who’s right.  I can just tell you why I lean a certain way on this.

In some cases, it appeared that telling people prevented Jesus from going to certain places openly because of the crowds.  While there was this “cause and effect,” I think there are better explanations.

Some have suggested that Jesus was exploiting human nature by using “reverse psychology,” so by telling people not to talk He was ensuring greater publicity when they talked.  I can’t picture Jesus, as a perfectly honest Man, resorting to underhanded gimmicks like that.

To Keep People Away from Unbelief That Could Cause Them to Lose Their Healings

When you study Jesus’ ministry, you see that some crowds and some areas were more open to Him than others.  The Pharisees wanted Him dead and kept looking for any flimsy “fake news” they could come up with to discredit Him. Some places (Nazareth in particular) were critical of Him and thus they were not open to miracles.

The fact that Jesus sometimes led people out of town before He ministered to them would be the key to understanding this, at least in my opinion.  Remember, He kicked everyone out of a house except Peter, James and John and the parents of the girl whom He was about to raise from the dead.  It seems to me that He wanted to get the unbelief out of there.  In this same situation, after the girl was raised, Jesus told the parents not to tell anyone what had happened (Luke 8:41-56).  This seems like a perfectly reasonable idea given that the other people were “laughing Him to scorn” in the passage above.  Would you want people who were laughing at you with you if you plan to raise a dead person?  Would it be a good idea to tell all the scorners what had just happened?  I would think not. However, no explicit explanation was given.

The leper who was healed was also told not to tell anyone except the priest what had happened (Matthew 8:2-4, Mark 1:40-45, Luke 5:12-15).  A man was healed of deafness and speech trouble and all the people around were told not to tell anyone (Mark 7:32-37).  No explicit explanation was given there, either.

Leading someone out of town would serve to get him away from unbelief.  If an area were like that, it would make sense to say, “Don’t tell anyone in this town!” because if the healed person told the townspeople, they would probably talk the person out of his healing by saying that Beelzebub was the source of the healing!  The person would then renounce, and lose, his healing.  I know a preacher who felt led to tell someone who was healed of cancer not to tell anyone in the area.  The person talked anyway and the locals convinced the person that the devil was behind the healing.  The person renounced his healing and the cancer came back.

It is interesting that Jesus told people to say nothing in certain cases (a leper, two blind men, a dead girl and a deaf man with a speech impediment – there are overlapping accounts of some of these), but told only one person (the former demoniac at Gadara) to publicize his healing.  A healed blind man followed Him, glorifying God, and Jesus didn’t stop him, though there is no record that He told him to do it.

To Keep His Whereabouts Unknown to the Pharisees

If you knew that certain people were trying to kill you, it would be natural not to advertise your whereabouts or have anyone else do it.

Matthew 12:14-16:
Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.
But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;
And charged them that they should not make him known:

This passage all seems to go together.  Jesus got away from the people who were trying to kill him, and he charged others not to reveal His whereabouts.

To Fulfill Prophecy

This very same passage continues:

Matthew 12:17-21:
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,
Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.
He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.
And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.

So Jesus telling people not to publicize Him was also a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, which is another completely valid explanation.