This week on Readings from the Cheap Seats, we step into the two places temptation loves most: the Garden and the desert. Genesis shows how sin starts, rarely with a punch in the face, usually with a question that twists God’s goodness.

Then Jesus, the New Adam, shuts down Satan’s playbook with truth, trust, and zero negotiation.

Along the way we talk about the “civil war” inside the human heart, what the Church calls concupiscence and why you can know what’s right and still feel pulled toward what’s destructive, and how Psalm 51 gives us the way back: not fig leaves, but mercy. If you’ve ever felt that tug-of-war between what you know and what you want, this one’s for you.

Takeaways

• Temptation and sin as fundamental themes of Lent
• The internal struggle of concupiscence and the battle for spiritual integrity

Chapters

00:00Introduction: Temptation and Lent

00:46Biblical Readings for Lent: Genesis, Psalm 51, Romans, Matthew

02:15The Universal Human Experience of Inner Civil War

03:14The Source Code of Internal Struggle: The Fall and Inherited Sin

04:42The Original Human Condition: Clay and Spirit

07:09Eden as Sanctuary: The Priest-King Role of Adam

08:38The Serpent and the Siege: Cosmic Treason

09:37The Target: Eve and the Chain of Command

10:35The Deception: Distorting God's Word

11:30The Knowledge of Good and Evil: Authority and Wisdom

13:00Adam's Silence and the Fall of Guardianship

14:29Hebrew Wordplay: Nakedness and Exposure

15:27Spiritual Death and the Loss of Divine Light

16:24Inherited Sin: The Wounded Human Condition

17:50Concupiscence: The Civil War of Desires

20:48Jesus as the Second Adam: Victory in the Desert

21:18The Temptations of Jesus: Parallels to Adam and Israel

24:46Practical Spiritual Disciplines: Scripture, Repentance, Guarding

29:10Reframing the Struggle: Normalizing the Civil War

30:07The Sacramental Healing of the Body and Spirit

30:36Knowledge vs. Wisdom: The Path to Obedience

31:05The Tree of Disobedience and the Tree of Life: Salvation's Symmetry

32:03Conclusion: Hope in Christ, the Second Adam