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Genesis is Important in the New Testament

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There are some people who call themselves "Red Letter Christians" because they think that only the words of Jesus in red letters are important. So much for spiritual growth! Such a view is not only silly, but self-refuting simply because Jesus referred to other parts of Scripture.

A slightly more reasonable but still erroneous idea is that the Old Testament was fulfilled and we are living under the New Testament (Covenant), so it is not needed. As with the Red Letter view, this one shows ignorance and biblical illiteracy — a problem that too many professing Christians have in some form.

There are attitudes about Scripture that lead to biblical illiteracy. One is that the Old Testament is irrelevant, including Genesis. Take a look while that is refuted.
Genesis 2:24-25, Pexels / Brett Jordan
Related to all this is how some people mythologize and allegorize the first eleven chapters of Genesis. This is often done by people who want to believe in long ages and various compromising positions. If they would actually read the Bible without liberal spectacles to color their perceptions, they might see that these areas are treated as history throughout the Bible. Indeed, Genesis is referred to or quoted a great deal in the New Testament.

I am often asked why someone specializing in the New Testament would care about the “Old Testament” issue of creation. After all, one’s view on the first chapters of Genesis seems peripheral at best when it comes to interpreting the New Testament. But I believe that one’s interpretation of Genesis has implications for many doctrines which are taught most clearly in the New Testament.

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. . .  we must look at how the New Testament authors used Genesis in order to discern their view. Overwhelmingly, it is presumed to be a historical document; the only place where it could even be argued that it is not necessarily used historically is in the borrowing of Edenic symbols in Revelation to describe the New Jerusalem (depending on one’s eschatological view1). But this is the exception, and in any case, even a symbolic use has an underlying literal reality—the figurative “strong as an ox” would mean nothing unless an ox were literally strong, and the allusion to an Edenic paradise underscores the reality of this pre-Fall world without a curse.

You can read the entire article at "The use of Genesis in the New Testament."