Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 17:1

"And he said unto his disciples, It is impossible but that occasions of stumbling should come; but woe unto him, through whom they come!" — Luke 17:1 (ASV)

It is impossible but that offences will come.—In this instance, the absence of any apparent connection might, perhaps, justify us in viewing the two precepts as having been noted by Saint Luke for their own intrinsic value, without regard to the context in which they had been spoken. (See Notes on Matthew 18:7.)

Even here, however, we must remember that there may have been what we have called “dropped links.” It is not hard to see that the self-indulgent life, after the pattern of the rich man in the preceding parable, was an “offence” which, in one sense, would necessarily come in the history of the Christian Church, as it had come in the Jewish, and yet would bring a woe on the man through whom it came.