Jason Timothy Smith describes himself as an accountant by day, and artist by night. Are art and accounting polar opposites? Apparently not. Jason talks about finding a book called Suma de Arithmetica, about Fra Luca Pacioli, an Italian Mathematician known as the “father of accounting.” He was also a teacher of Leonardo da Vinci, who studied anatomy and science as well as art. Pacioli also wrote a book called The Divine Proportion about the Golden Ratio, or the Golden Mean. Renaissance artists used these proportions in their composition of paintings.

Pacioli was a Franciscan friar who saw theological implications in these mathematical relationships as well. In accounting, the act of balancing credits and debits is called reconciliation. In Luke 6:27-38, Jesus calls for us to give a record of our spiritual life in terms of our relationships with our debtors, and the sum of our actions is measured by whether we love our enemies. He questions getting credit for loving those who love us. Christ pondered aloud, “if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you’ and “if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you?”

Hear more (via youtube) as Jason continues with these equations of love, divine proportions and perspectives, and the grace of God’s accounts.