<p>7:38 <i>This is he that was i<em>n the congregation in the wilderness- </em></i>The ecclesia, the church. We find Moses as a type of Christ also presented as representative of Israel, and therefore able to completely sympathise with them in their physical afflictions and spiritual weaknesses. Thus the Spirit says (in the context of presenting Moses as a type of Christ) that Moses was &quot;<em>in</em> (not &quot;with&quot;) the ecclesia in the wilderness&quot;, stressing the way in which he was in their midst rather than distanced from them.&nbsp;The Lord Jesus is portrayed in Acts as very much &quot;in&quot; the church, active and present just as much as Moses was. Paul's later reasoning in 1 Corinthians 10 about the church in the wilderness is yet another example of how the reasoning of Stephen remained with him over the years, and he developed the ideas.</p><p><em>With the angel- </em>Acts 7:38 (especially the Diaglott translation) speaks as if the Angel was physically present with Moses on the journey, and was as much in the congregation as Moses was: &quot;He (Moses) was in the church in the wilderness with the Angel which spake to him in the Mount Sina and with our fathers&quot;. In passing, this implies that it was the same Angel (Michael) who gave the promises to Abraham, who gave the Law, and who went with them through the wilderness. Truly He is the Angel connected with Israel Stephen's point was that like the Angel in the wilderness, the Lord Jesus was no less 'in' the early church although mostly invisible.</p><p><em>That spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers</em>- But their 'fathers' didn't want the Angel to speak with them directly, and wanted Moses alone to meet God on Sinai. This was the stock they were descended from; and it was no pedigree to be proud of. Stephen is implying that the descendants of those 'fathers' were likewise not willing to listen to the voice of God; or as Hebrews puts it, they turned away from Him who spoke from Heaven (Heb. 12:25- Hebrews might have been written by Stephen).</p><p><i>Who received living words to give to us</i>- God's word is unlike any human word; it has the ability to speak to subsequent generations directly in their context. In this sense, the words given to Moses were also given to Stephen's generation, and spoke to them of Jesus. Just as the record of Jacob's wrestling with the Angel is God speaking to us today (Hos. 12:4). Moses trembled and Sinai shook and the people fled when they heard God's word. &quot;God's voice was heard at Sinai: the same voice spoke in the Psalmist's words. But the appeal stands written in Scripture and therefore Paul can say that &quot;Today&quot; is a time with limits, but it was yet &quot;today&quot; when the Hebrews was written and Paul repeats the word of the Psalmist as God's voice to the Hebrews of his day. It is significant that Paul immediately adds that &quot;the word of God is living and powerful&quot;. The words he quoted were no dead message but God's living voice&hellip; The exhortation &quot;My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord&quot; was God speaking &quot;unto you&quot;, says Paul to the Hebrews. Is it less so to sons of any generation?&quot; John Carter, <em>Delight In God's Law</em>, pp. 232,233. Heb. 12:5 alludes to this idea of a living word by speaking of an Old Testament passage as 'reasoning' (R.V.) with us. The Lord Jesus spoke of how the spiritual man is to live by every word which proceeds (present tense) from the mouth of God (Mt. 4:4); as if He perceived God's words written in the book of Deuteronomy to be &quot;proceeding&quot; from God's very mouth in an ongoing sense. Moses speaks of how God says to each dying man &quot;Return, you children of men&quot; (Ps. 90:3)- as if Moses understood to speak the words of Gen. 3:19 to every man who dies. Likewise the Lord spoke as if the Jews of His day ought to be&nbsp;<em>hearing</em> Moses and the prophets speaking to them in urgent warning (Lk. 16:31); yet despite studying their words syllable by syllable, the Jews didn't in fact perceive it was a living word speaking to them directly and urgently. Abel, through the account of him in Scripture, &quot;is yet spoken of&quot; (Heb. 11:4 AVmg.). Isaiah was prophesying directly to the hypocrites of the first century, according to the Lord in Mk. 7:6 RV. There is an active quality to the words we read on the pages of our Bibles. The passage in the scrolls that said &quot;I am the God of Abraham&quot; was &quot;spoken unto <em>you</em> by God&rdquo;, Jesus told first century Israel (Mt. 22:31). Note in passing how demanding He was- expecting them to figure from that statement and usage of the present tense that God considered Abraham effectively still alive, although he was dead, and would therefore resurrect him. Although God spoke to Moses alone in the mount, Moses stresses that actually God &quot;spake unto <em>you</em> in the mount out of the midst of the fire&quot;. The word of God to His scribes really is, to the same gripping, terrifying degree, His direct word to us (Dt. 4:36; 5:45; 10:4). This explains why David repeatedly refers to the miracle at the Red Sea as if this had affected him personally, to the extent that he could ecstatically rejoice because of it. When Dt. 11:4 speaks of how &quot;the Lord has destroyed the Egyptians unto this day&quot;, it sounds as if we are to understand each victory and achievement of God as somehow ongoing right down to our own day and our own lives and experience. Thus Ps. 114:5,6 RV describes the Red Sea as even now fleeing before God&rsquo;s people. And thus because of the records of God's past activities, we should be motivated in our decisions now.</p>