I Was Wrong [Hardcover]

Jim Bakker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 1996

The loss of Jim Bakker's empire, his money, his home, and his reputation in the two years leading up to his imprisonment in 1989 was only the beginning. In prison, he was to lose even more - his freedom, his sanity, his dignity, his confidence in his faith, and eventually even his wife. Inmate 07407-058, one-time confidant to presidents, had hit bottom. Jim Bakker was wrong about many things. Exactly what they were and how he came to confess them will surprise and inspire you. This is his story.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 466 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson; First Edition edition (September 21, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0785274251
• ISBN-13: 978-0785274254
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (57 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #704,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for PTL viewers and supporters, May 17, 2003

By 

K. Olgren (Milwaukee, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Was Wrong: The Untold Story of the Shocking Journey from PTL Power to Prison and Beyond (Paperback)

I am not the target audience for this book. During the time that Jim Bakker and Jessica Hahn were in the news, I attended a non-denominational church most like the Baptists. My only familiarity with Jim Bakker and his programming is what little I saw in excerpts over the years, which really wasn't much. Now I attend an Orthodox Presbyterian church. Doctrinally, it was always my assessment that Jim Bakker was wrong. I didn't need to read his confession to hear that. In fact, if we were to get into many of the doctrinal issues, I would probably still disagree with Bakker on a number of issues.

Had I not gotten my cheap copy used here on Amazon, I likely never would have read it. I am SO glad I did. On all the IMPORTANT matters, we agree. This book was tremendous. It was so encouraging to read about how God provided for Bakker and worked in his life, giving him encouragement when he needed it and direction in how to go on. The story that especially comes to mind is when he was in prison after his mental breakdown, when he was ready to just give up on everything and die, and a guard risked his career to remind him, "Jesus loves you."

Bakker's discussion of forgiveness and what is necessary to do it was wonderful. It helped me finally forgive some people who hurt me many years ago in totally different ways. If anybody knows how to forgive, it is Jim Bakker. He's had to forgive a huge number of people.

His humility in writing this book and confessing his own failures and weaknesses was refreshing. Many Christian leaders become full of themselves and what they've accomplished, unfortunately, and it is not at all unusual for many people to refuse to admit, at least to others, that they were wrong. Bakker never had to write this book. It probably reopened a number of old wounds that he'd rather leave alone. But he did, and I would imagine that the majority of his readers are glad that he did.

My perception of Jim Bakker has been transformed through the reading of this excellent book. When I bought it, it was mostly due to the curiosity factor. What did he think he was wrong about? It might be interesting.

I once thought of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker as a couple of clowns, buffoons that Satan used to smear mud all over the name of Christ. Today, I see a broken man, a modern day Job. In this present day and age, there is no one in the Christian community I can think of who went through as much as he did. Did he bring it on himself? To an extent, yes he did. He chose to procede with an affair with Jessica Hahn. But Bakker knows that. Did he deserve to lose everything -- his personal posessions, his reputation, his word (in the failure of PTL, though not something he intentionally did), his marriage? No. But God had a plan. He uses everything for the good of those who love him, and he never forgot Jim Bakker.

This book is an encouragement and something most of us can learn from. As I said, it is such a tremendous book, that it is worth reading, no matter what you once thought of Jim Bakker, before the headlines and the demise of PTL. My only disappointment is that I bought the abbreviated paperback. I can't help but wonder if the parts that were excluded were also well worth a read!

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mallowcups for Jimmy., July 9, 2000

By 

Tracy Groot - See all my reviews

This review is from: I Was Wrong (Hardcover)

This book never interested me. I stuck my little nosey up at it, not wanting to peer at someone's icky past and wade through all their dredged up pain. I read the book because a friend I respect read it. Her review startled me into reading it.

What I discovered about Jim Bakker is that we have much in common. Short synopsis: Guy makes mistakes. Guy is in the pits. Guy discovers who God REALLY is.

This story is about a man who made mistakes, not the ones we thought, but maybe the ones we are more familiar with. It's a beautiful story of redemption, of God redeeming the redeemed. This story is not only Jim's, but Billy Graham's and Billy's son, Franklin. They lined themselves up with Jim, like Jesus did with the woman who had somes stones coming to her.

I had a rock or two in my hand before I picked up this book. Got no more rocks...but I do have some Mallowcups. I'd share 'em with you, Mr. Bakker, if I ever got the chance.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The "real" Jim Bakker seems to surface, January 6, 2001

By 

Bonnie McKinzie (Garden Grove, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: I Was Wrong (Hardcover)

Curiosity probably caused my initial ... purchase of the hardback copy, but by the time I was finished I felt I knew a different Jim from the materialistic, flashy head of PTL and Heritage, USA.

From a humble beginning with such promise, he and Tammy Faye somehow lost their way in the glamor and glitz of Heritage and its' fame. Granted, they felt a call of God on their lives, but they seemed to turn a corner somewhere along the route and money became a god instead of God. At least that's how Jim describes their life in this book.

Although the book is long and sometimes wordy, it really does lay out the past and present situation of a man who, once acknowledged as a shining star in the Assemblies of God - failed. His deep devotion to his wife Tammy Faye is obvious as is his sense of betrayal by her with his trusted best friend. Of course, he also seemed to understand her needs and the fact that he was in prison and she was lonely. Still, his account made me very angry at Tammy Faye for not "standing by her man" -per Tammy Wynette.

The prison routine was frightful and probably Jim's sanity was often on the edge, but when he sincerely and seriously turned to God and the Bible, he found that his real friends were there for him. Not the "Job's" friends like in that saga, but his real, true friends literally bridged the gap between despair and decency. I appreciated the fact that Jim gave credit where it was due.

Probably the most impressive page of the book was when Jim Bakker said he really, never, ever knew God as deeply as he met Him within the walls of prison, after being stripped of all his glory, money, his marriage and reputation. It had to be humiliating and embarrassing, but it was probably at that low point in his life when he realized all the expensive trappings and phoney friends were just transitory, and all that was real was his faith and dependence on God. He realized he was wrong, he repented and came back, just as he was, and God met him there.

I feel writing this book was perhaps the cleansing ritual Jim needed to go through before being released, and I think it was much like his personal journaling only he shared it with the public. Thanks Jim, and may God bless your new ministry however humble.