After twenty-six years of service as full-time Professor of Biblical Studies, Dr. Hiigel retired in May, 2024, and now teaches part-time as Professor Emeritus, focusing on the Introduction to the Bible course. Over the years, Dr. Hiigel taught a variety of courses in the Old and New Testaments, New Testament Greek, and occasional ministry courses, but half of his assignment was always that Introduction to the Bible, a valued opportunity to interact with first-year students from many denominations and backgrounds and the full range of our school’s majors. Opening the Bible with those students year after year prompted Hiigel to write Partnering with the King, a devotional study of the Gospel of Matthew, published by Paraclete Press. During his sabbatical concurrent with the Covid outbreak in 2020, he wrote The Good Wine: Experiencing Jesus’ New Life, which he has been using with students ever since. USF aims to “develop mature Christians for service to God and humankind in the world,” and Hiigel has written these books to help emerging adults here and across the nation read the Bible with a view to working out mature Christian discipleship and service.
Hiigel’s teaching work is an extension of his career in the ministry. He was raised in a Christian home. His father was a church choir director and a college-level music educator, and Hiigel went to college at UCLA and graduate school at USC to become a musician himself. He worked as a union musician in Los Angeles both as a trombonist and a singer for more than a decade, including national and international touring. During his college years, he got involved with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, committed his life firmly to the Lord Jesus, and discovered the joy of opening the Bible with fellow students. It eventually became clear that a career as a trombonist was not going to work out due to a lip injury from overplaying. After a long stretch of praying and discerning, Hiigel went to Fuller Theological Seminary for his Master of Divinity degree and began in 1975 a 23-year span of pastoral ministry in Southern California churches. He was ordained by the American Baptist Churches, and, after 10 years as a minister of music and youth, he served as a senior pastor from 1985 to 1998. Highlights included service alongside an inner-city L.A. ministry to the poor and addicted, partnership with Hispanic and Korean congregations, and long-term sponsorship of evangelism among an unreached people group in Central Asia.
Hiigel returned to Fuller to pursue a Ph.D. in New Testament during his last pastorate in Los Angeles. In the process of those studies, he wrote Leadership in 1 Corinthians: A Case Study in Paul’s Ecclesiology (Edwin Mellon Press). His doctorate paved the way to come to USF, where he loves to teach and to serve students in a pastoral way.
Hiigel and his wife, Cindi, are halfway into their fifth decade of marriage. Their daughter, Rebecca Bartz, teaches choral music and music theory at Jefferson High School in Sioux Falls.