Deuteronomy 2:5-10
"If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband's brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother to her. 6 And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. 7 But if the man does not want to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate to the elders, and say, ‘My husband's brother refuses to raise up a name to his brother in Israel; he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.' 8 Then the elders of his city shall call him and speak to him. But if he stands firm and says, ‘I do not want to take her,' 9 then his brother's wife shall come to him in the presence of the elders, remove his sandal from his foot, spit in his face, and answer and say, ‘So shall it be done to the man who will not build up his brother's house.' 10 And his name shall be called in Israel, ‘The house of him who had his sandal removed.'
Its a verse that may horrify modern readers. When a brother dies, his other brother must sleep with the dead brother's wife until she becomes pregnant with his seed. The child will retain the dead brother's name. Now you may think the man is happy for the free sex and the woman is relucant but actually it is the opposite. The woman was the one encouraging this rule to be followed. The reluctant male, if he did not go along and provide her seed, would be subject to public disgrace and humiliation by having his shoe removed (he was reluctant due to the financial burden in raising the child). Like polygamy, this tradition has not been carried over in to the New Testament for obvious reasons. But what we can carry into this current age is the spiritual parable that was really intended all along. A lot of the Old Testament rules were hidden messages for our age. Paul mentions this, commenting that the passage "do not muzzle the ox which treads out the grain," was really a message about God's workers deserving salaries, not a rule about actual oxen.
1 Corinthians 9:9-10 For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.’ Is it oxen God is concerned about? Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that mhe who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So what the passage in Deuteronomy means is that if there are two brothers in Christ which are working together in ministry, if one of them dies with his work incomplete, such as a book which is half-finished, the other one must pick up and continue this work, finish and publish the book, while leaving the other brother's name on the title. Or if the brother hosts a website with many teachings, the associate needs to continue paying to host the site and take over the technical aspects of managing updates. The removing of the sandal represents the "feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace," and to not carry on his brother's work, God will remove this fake friend's empowerment to spread the gospel so he too can experience lack of spiritual reproduction. Just like the ministry friend he stabbed in the back by failing to carry on his work.
The most famous Bible commentary of all time is the Matthew Henry Commentary. Amazingly, this work almost never made it to publication. The author, Mr. Henry himself, died before it was complete. Fortunately for him he had true Christian friends. Friends with the heart of God who would not let a person’s life labour be wasted in vain. His friends put the finishing touches on the work and took care of all the efforts and expense in bringing the massive work to publication. These are real friends. Would your close friends do the same for you? Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible went on to become the greatest selling Bible commentary of all time. Perhaps his friends did not think much of their efforts at the time. Just doing a favour for a friend. But imagine the lives impacted by their efforts, even though their own name would not be on the finished product. When you raise up seed unto the brother, the brother's name is the only one attached to the finished work. If you can’t trust ministry friends to carry on your work, then those “friends” are worthless.
In my Bible College days, I benefited a lot from Bill Somers old website. It got me into a bit of trouble as well, as my promoting the site’s teaching “Rapture of the Manchild” got me kicked out from that college (due to the carnal minds of the Bible school teachers). Somers was old however, and after his death, his website was closed down and all of the efforts he put into internet ministry was to be lost forever. God instructed me to recover and repost these prophetic teachings which would have been gone for good otherwise and now there is a whole section on my website with his work. Now his ministry can still continue, even after death. We should help each other out like this. I would expect that at least one person would do the same for me if I were to have an early death and would make sure the website teachings were not lost forever.
When a brother in Christ dies with good quality work and you are a close associate, it is your responsibility to ensure their work is preserved or continued. We cannot let a person's life efforts just go to waste while watching passively.