I do actually understand the mentality here. People believe they are sola scripturists who stand implacably on the words of the bible. It is inerrant, and everything in it must be accepted. And they believe, only they and their denomination stands full square on the letter of the bible(or them and denominations closely aligned to them in doctrine) Indeed, I grew up in such a church(non sda) And there is much criticism of other denominations who it is felt do not totally adhere to what is written as they do. Many in other churches see this as arrogance. My church was considered as such when I was young.
The problem is, you cannot just read the literal words of partial scripture and understand the full message in the bible. The bible was not meant to be understood that way. The message is inerrant, but you will never fully understand that message if you just concentrate on the letter itself. You are left with at best a shallow understanding of scripture. When I look back now to when I had that mentality, I can testify that was true in my own life, as well as those in the church I was a member of. Yet, as people do today, I thought I belonged to the church closest to the church of the new testement. Such churches, in effect preach righteousness of obeying the law. Which is what LGW in truth preaches, however skilfully he tries to use words to protest to the contrary. And it was the same in the church I went to when young. In truth, these people simply excuse their own sin(somehow) and just concentrate on the fact they do not get drunk, smoke, use foul language, have extra marital affairs etc. They then believe they have reached the moral requirement to enter heaven. Again, it is so shallow, many who persecuted Christ and the early church could have passed their tests easily
You have to understand the message contained in the letter. Just reeling off huge chunks of the letter itself proves nothing, a child could do it!! And in my experience, there are only partial sola scripturists anyway, its just quoting selective verses they copy paste from their computer.
It is sad really, they will never truly understand the message they are so confident they fully know. And they miss out on what is most important in Christianity. They do not display the love and compassion in their lives as you will find among others who do not have their mindset. For the letter kills, it either crushes you, or you become hardnosed. Neither of those brings forth love for others in anyone. You just end up preaching a message you cannot practice in your own personal life, again, no love for others in doing that