Are inter-religious marriages encouraged in islam?

I assume or rather see, some scholars discourage Muslim men from marrying outside of the faith and surely for obvious reasons and I understand that perfectly. However, seeing how the Quran allows us Muslims men to marry from the people of the book, does it justify the scholars who are actively discouraging this practice? In addition, one can speculate that there must be certain reasons as to why Allah allowed Muslims men to marry interreligiously. However, one can not ignore how inter-religious marriages can be complicated. So what significance or reason can we consider, Islamically, when it comes to the ruling of inter-religious marriage?