2020-11-21. Why did Jesus say to others “tell no man”?
People often wonder why Jesus, upon healing another person or upon a seemingly miraculous event, why he would tell the person or others to “tell no man” what had happened. We sometimes wonder why he would do such a thing. Didn’t he want others besides his Apostles of women and men and his disciples that followed him to recognize who he was? We already know he was not considering himself to be the so-called Messiah to the Jewish people.
We find the answer in looking at Jesus’ early manhood, as described in his twenty-first year, in Paper 128, section 4 (UB 128:4) of The Urantia Book.
Here are the three paragraphs that do a great job explaining his thinking:
“Jesus most cleverly and intentionally contrived to detach various episodes of his life so that they never became, in the eyes of the world, associated together as the doings of a single individual. Many times in subsequent years he listened to the recital of this very story of the strange Galilean who declined the opportunity of founding a school in Damascus to compete with Alexandria.
“One purpose which Jesus had in mind, when he sought to segregate certain features of his earthly experience, was to prevent the building up of such a versatile and spectacular career as would cause subsequent generations to venerate the teacher in place of obeying the truth which he had lived and taught. Jesus did not want to build up such a human record of achievement as would attract attention from his teaching. Very early he recognized that his followers would be tempted to formulate a religion about him which might become a competitor of the gospel of the kingdom that he intended to proclaim to the world. Accordingly, he consistently sought to suppress everything during his eventful career which he thought might be made to serve this natural human tendency to exalt the teacher in place of proclaiming his teachings.
“This same motive also explains why he permitted himself to be known by different titles during various epochs of his diversified life on earth. Again, he did not want to bring any undue influence to bear upon his family or others which would lead them to believe in him against their honest convictions. He always refused to take undue or unfair advantage of the human mind. He did not want men to believe in him unless their hearts were responsive to the spiritual realities revealed in his teachings.” (UB 128:4.5-7)
In our text we find eighteen times where Jesus asks others to speak to no one about what had occurred. Some of those recipients of his request did exactly that: they told no one else. But in the main, most folks could not keep Jesus’ acts a secret; they had to get the word out. In part, this resulted in many of the Bible stories about Jesus’ miracles and other acts that astounded folks of those days and age. And the events continue to astonish most Christians today.
Indeed, the result is exactly what Jesus did not want: a religion about Jesus rather than his teachings and the example of his life lived as an example of a spirit-led life that we should be following in spirit.
So why do the book’s authors lay all of this material of “tell no man” out for us now? I can think of one reason: most of Jesus’ admonitions regarding “telling no man” (or woman, I presume) is that most of his so-called miracles were not really miracles and Jesus did not want his journey to be seen as that of doing so-called miracle acts. But, in reality, who can be healed and not go about telling others?
But there is another reason: to finally set to rest all of the conflicting, fabricated, and false material that the Bible contains. And, thanks to the recent (past 100 years and beyond) scholarly and scientific and historical research into the ancient records from the first several centuries, people are more prepared to hear these ideas and, possibly, accept them.
There are a few other reasons but these had to do with the “business” of running a universe and, until the publication of our text, much of that information was not to be shared with Jesus’ associates.
Now comes along The Urantia Book. That is, according to the revelators, now the world is beginning to be ready for its truth about the life and teachings of Jesus.
James Leese
November 21, 2020
