29 April 2025| St Albans, UK [Steven Thompson with tedNEWS)
On Wednesday, 16 April, Dr Sakae Kubo passed away at the age of 98 in Bakersfield, California, USA. From 1980 to 1984, Kubo served as Principal of Newbold College of Higher Education (then known as Newbold College). The leadership of the Trans-European Division, and students who worked and studied at Newbold during his tenure and were impacted by his life and ministry, remain deeply grateful for his leadership and service. Dr Stephen Thompson, who lectured at Newbold during Kubo’s time as Principal and succeeded him in September 1984, shares a personal reflection.
Dr Sakae Kubo was one of three lecturers in New Testament studies at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, located at Andrews University in Michigan, USA. I met him while attending an open-house weekend for undergraduate theology students, designed to recruit us into the seminary’s Master of Ministry course. As a keen student of New Testament Greek, into which I had been initiated by Dr Philip Schuil during a year at Newbold College, I was especially interested in what Dr Kubo and the two other New Testament lecturers had to offer.
A year later I completed my undergraduate degree and enrolled in the Seminary. By then all three New Testament lecturers had been removed from their positions in response to a wave of suspicion directed at Adventist theologians who had earned higher degrees from secular universities. Dr Kubo had been reassigned as the Seminary librarian, but was allowed to do a limited amount of lecturing. I enrolled in his course exegeting the Epistle to Hebrews in its original Greek language. It proved to be an academic and inspirational high point. In his rapid but low-key manner, he employed his devotion to scholarship, combined with his deep faith, to enrich our understanding of the message of Hebrews, inspiring me to earn a higher degree in biblical languages.I, along with a multitude of other students, also benefited from his compact, easy-to-use dictionary of New Testament Greek.
Some years later, when I was a lecturer in New Testament at Newbold College, I was privileged to work under Dr Kubo’s steady administrative hand when he served as Principal from 1980 to 1984. I believe his appointment, like mine, was part of a move to internationalise the Newbold faculty so it more closely reflected its multinational student body. Acquiring a multi-cultural perspective does not come automatically. Dr Kubo, from birth, was exposed to multiple cultures. His Japanese parents immigrated to Hawaii. After growing up there, he moved to the mainland United States for further education. Each move exposed him to another culture, preparing him for his future roles in the multicultural Seventh-day Adventist Church, whose members come “from all the world” and are sometimes sent “to all the world” to carry out God’s mission.
I was astonished when the Newbold College Board of Governors invited me to serve as Principal following Dr Kubo’s departure. I believe he promoted me as his replacement partly because of my bilingualism, thanks to my Norwegian wife, Kristin, and my multiculturalism, which resulted from living and working in the United States, Scotland, and England.
My last contact with Dr Kubo was at Avondale College in Australia, where I taught after leaving Newbold, and where we are now retired. He and his wife spent some very pleasant days as our house guests while visiting the country.
I am one of many who have been blessed by Dr Kubo’s energetic faith, Bible knowledge and teaching ministry. He has been blessed with a long life and has helped prepare many for a life of service.
I look forward to meeting him at the resurrection!
Trans-European Division president, Daniel Duda, also notes:
On 8 May 2025, Sakae Kubo would have been 99 years old. He was a world expert on New Testament translations. His books were well received beyond Adventism. Coming from communist Czechoslovakia, behind the Iron Curtain, I had only one year at Newbold, but I remember his sermons, based on the Bible, and with no spiritual blackmail, simply showing how the Bible is relevant today. Those of us who took his 1 Corinthians exegesis class will never forget the serious engagement with the Bible. What an amazing man!
Dr Stephen Thompson served as Principal of Newbold College from 1984 – 1990.
In 1994 Sakae Kubo was awarded Alumnus of the Year by Andrews Academy, Berrien Springs Michigan, marking the 50th anniversary of his graduation in 1944. Read more about the life of Dr Kubo
Of the many books and articles written by Kubo, perhaps none were as seminal for the development of Adventist mission as “Calculated Goodness is a Counterfeit” (1967)
[Photos courtesy of the Roy Graham Library Special Collections (Archives)]
