Many Christians today have only a very limited knowledge of the Psalms and are oblivious to the relevance and significance this portion of scripture has, both to the New Testament and to their lives in the 21st century.

This book will help pastors, seminary students, lay leaders and Christians in personal study, to understand how the psalms relate to Christ so they will be better equipped to preach and teach the psalms. Some psalms have a direct relationship to Christ, but with other psalms the link is not always as evident. Belcher shows that all the psalms relate in some way to Christ’s person or his work. The biblical basis for this view is laid out and then how it works with different types of psalms is examined. In addition to this Belcher then goes on to offer deeper exposition into those psalms that have a direct relationship to Christ.

Enlightening, perceptive and balanced, Belcher has successfully filled a void in the study of the Psalms. By doing so he has provided a methodology and a model other can use to understand the psalms in their Old Testament context and how they relate to Christ and to God’s people today.

Richard P. Belcher was born in St. Joseph, MO on October 12, 1934. He was the second child of three of Mr. and Mrs. George Delbert Belcher. He professed faith in Christ at the age of nine years, and was baptized at the First Baptist Church of St. Joseph. At the age of thirteen, the family moved to the St. Louis area, where he spent his high school years, participating in the sports of football, basketball and track. It was during his senior year at Kirkwood High School that he sensed God’s call to the ministry.Upon graduating from high school, he went to Hannibal LaGrange Baptist College in Hannibal, MO. Immediately he began preaching in local churches in the Missouri area, and then he began to pastor a rural church outside of Troy, MO as he started his sophomore year of college. During that year he also started another church outside of Wentzville, MO. After his sophomore year he married Mary Anne Casner of Troy, and they moved to Wheaton, IL so he could attend Wheaton College. While at Wheaton he started another church at Dekalb, IL and spent three and a half years pastoring there as he also finished college in 1956.

From Dekalb he moved his family (a wife, a son, Richard, Jr. and a daughter Anne Jeannette) back to Troy, MO, as he then spent the next two years in full time evangelistic work, traveling from church to church in itinerant ministry. He left this ministry in the Spring of 1961 to pastor the First Baptist Church of Washington Park, in East St. Louis, IL. He spent the next fifteen years pastoring this church, while at the same time he finished a Bachelor of Divinity degree, a Master of Arts degree, and a Master of Theology degree, all from Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He also finished all the class work for a Doctor of Theology degree, before moving to Columbia, SC in the summer of 1976 to join the faculty of Columbia Bible College (now Columbia International University). He went to CIU to teach Bible and theology, but now is Director of the Pastoral Ministries Program, and teaches Bible, Greek, Church History, Pastoral Ministries, Preaching, etc.

From this base in the following years he finished the Doctor of Theology degree from Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis in 1981, began Richbarry Press and the writing of many books about 1981 also, traveled extensively in ministry all over the states, participated in ministry in India. In the mid-nineties he began the ministry Evangelizing India for Christ. He and several other families also began Covenant Baptist Church in the Columbia area in the mid-nineties. He still remains active n all of these ministries.

His family now includes five grandchildren, two boys and three girls. His son, Richard, is on the faculty of Reformed Theological Seminary in Charlotte, where he teaches in the Old Testament department, and his daughter Angie Gottman lives in Lebanon, MO with her family.

His other interests include tennis and some golf. His greatest joy is preaching and teaching the Word of God, or to lose himself in writing one of the journey books, as he watches the Lord spin the plot of the story around the strong theology he wishes to teach.