As a jw, I thought of 'faith' as something active, not static and I think many contemporary christian commentators have the same perspective.
These days I do not give a rat's arse about the bible, the Jws, or the NWT. And, I care even less whether the word 'exercising' in this context is acceptable.
But it is important to know that translating something from an ancient language is very difficult. But translation from ancient documents is only part of the story, There is also the problem of early christian's translating from one language to another, It is now appreciated that Greek (or the form of Greek, then in common use) was in common use along with Aramaic, However there is even more complexity in the strong likelihood that there were also local dialects. Did Jesus speak in his local dialect? If so we could assume that early believer's who heard Jesus speak may have had to translate the words and grammatical patterns into another language three times (local dialect>aramaic>greek), We can understand how difficult that could be! (and we have not even touched on the problem of memory. If the book of John was written in the late first century (as the early church thought) then how the hell did John remember the actual words/grammatical forms that Jesus used. Believers will claim that the HS corrected John's faulty memory,
But its much easier to think that John embroidered his memory and used his imagination quite freely. In doing so, he would have bee following a common practise in Roman times, (e.g. the long speeches in the (secular) history of Ammianus Marcellinus (born c. 330, died c. 391 – 400) ,
So what am I getting at?
Translators often compare usage and thoughts to try and make their translation as accurate as possible. So if you wanted to compare thoughts on faith where would you go.
I suggest that the relatively short letter of James is a good p[ace to start, Why? OK! James does not get much emphasis in modern christianity, but he was likely a brother of Jesus, and he presided" over the all-important Jerusalem church; It is interesting to me that a university text book (Introducing the New Testament by Paul J. Achtemeier et al) says of the Letter of James. Quote: "it is a book that sounds much like Jesus and often speaks in tones uncannily reminiscent of Jesus own teaching."
As someone has already point out (in this chronologically draqged out discussion) James 2:4 says something similar to the word 'exercise.', To use different words, but with the same meaning, conviction (faith) and behaviour (works) are inseparable. Or, again, faith affects one's life. So is 'exercising faith,' really such a wrong expression.
^ And, it seems, leadership of the Jerusalem congregation stayed in the family until the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem.
