Mark 5:18-19

Why did Jesus instruct the man to tell others about what the Lord had done for him when He had told the cleansed leper not to tell anyone (Mark 1:44; cf. Mark 5:43; Mark 7:36)? Apparently there was little danger in this Gentile region that the people would create problems for Jesus’ mission as they did in Jewish territory. We need not understand Jesus’ command as a permanent prohibition against following Him. Perhaps this man did return and become a disciple after he bore witness locally. The synonymous use of the names "Lord" and "Jesus" shows that the man regarded Jesus as God (cf. Mark 5:7; Luke 8:39).

Jesus’ instructions to this man in a Gentile region would have helped Mark’s original Gentile readers know what an appropriate response to His deliverance of them was.

"Though we are not tortured by the devil, yet he holds us as his slaves, till the Son of God delivers us from his tyranny. Naked, torn, and disfigured, we wander about, till he restores us to soundness of mind." [Note: John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, 2:436.]