Death of Sakae Kubo

On April 16, 2025, Sakae Kubo died of natural causes at home with family in Bakersfield, California. About three weeks from turning 99, Kubo was born on May 8, 1926, in Honolulu, Hawaii. A caring teacher’s Bible lessons led to a schooling opportunity across the ocean and then six decades serving the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a minister, biblical scholar, theologian, and university administrator, his love of global sight-seeing and his expansive worldview contributed to his inspirational influence.

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For his senior year in 1944, Kubo left the islands to finish his studies in Emmanuel Missionary College (EMC) Academy, renamed Andrews Academy, in Berrien Springs, Mich. Decades later he was named its alumnus of the year.

He then attended EMC, now Andrews University (AU), for undergraduate studies and returned as minister at several churches on the Island of Hawaii and later in Southern California. In 1955, he returned to his alma mater for an MA and a divinity degree from the seminary and then taught biblical languages to undergraduates at AU.

What really marked his enduring Adventist influence was the period from 1960 to 1978 that Kubo worked at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary teaching Greek and a broad-minded compassion grounded in New Testament scholarship to many future leaders, including many founders of Spectrum. With his five degrees, including a PhD in New Testament and early Christian literature from the University of Chicago in 1964, and an MLIS from Western Michigan University in 1968, as director of the seminary library, he modeled a widely-read Adventism.

Kubo published 18 books between 1965 and 1999, and wrote numerous articles in various scholarly journals. As an academician focused on teaching and theologically applying biblical writing, he strove to understand the true meaning of the original author’s intent. He learned—largely through self-teaching—Koine Greek in order to read the New Testament manuscripts. In print for over 40 years, his A Reader’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament is still widely used by scholars, students, and ministers and has been translated into dozens of languages.

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Survivors of Kubo include his wife of nearly 77 years, Hatsumi Sakai Kubo of Bakersfield, California; three children, Wesley Kubo (Tracy) of Colleyville, Texas, Charlene Bainum (Bruce) of San Francisco, and Calvin Kubo (Sally) of Bakersfield; along with 10 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.

Read Kubo’s full obituary here.